


Take Me Out

by Squez



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Brutality, Canon - TV, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Eventual Romance, Everyone's a BAMF, F/M, Friends to family, Hope vs. Despair, Slow Burn, Starts from Season 2, There's only one OC, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, baseball bat
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-08-12
Packaged: 2018-07-25 13:16:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 64,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7534150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Squez/pseuds/Squez
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As I stumbled down the dirt grove, away from the abandoned UPS delivery truck, I thought about two things: a small horde of roamers were just up ahead and today was a new day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Count

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written anything in years, but I've never stopped reading. That being said, I forgot how to do tags on this site. Sorry there's so many characters listed, as we're not going to see every single one of them for awhile. We will, though. (:
> 
> The ratio number you will see later can be debated.

As I stumbled down the dirt grove leading off the road, away from the abandoned UPS delivery truck I stayed on top of the night before, I thought about two things: a small horde of roamers were just up ahead and today was a new day.

 

After a few long moments of peace, I started to hear the tell-tale sounds of the roamers. They’re feeding, from the subtle squelches and muffled growling noises I could make out. I stop a few meters from the hunched backs of thirteen roamers surrounding a wide-eyed and spasming deer. Fresh kill, it seemed.

 

Despite the grotesqueness, the site wasn't revolting to me. Instead, I pull the straps of my black backpack off, dumping the hefty weight from my shoulders and under a low tree. I untie the scrap piece of red cloth from around the bag handle, wrapping it around my neck before pulling it over my nose and mouth. As I twist my aluminum bat in a circle, I raise my wrist a little higher to my face to read the time on my brown strapped watch. 8:54am. With the new knowledge, I walk confidently over to the roamers. This would be quick. Two hog knives and berets rest snuggly and conveniently between my belt and jean clad thighs. My grip tightens even more on my bat as I raise it in the air with both my hands behind a male roamer wearing a plaid shirt. _One._

 

It only takes one well-aimed swing in the center of a softened skull of a roamer to put them down. The last radio broadcast I heard had told me, in so many words. The only weakness the undead had was something in the brain. As soon as I found a library, I was going to get an Anatomy book over the central nervous system and brush up on my knowledge over the subject. I had a list already of what books to get, it was all in my journal. A first aid or paramedic handbook was at the top of that list, too. Medical skills were a vital piece in surviving now, and I had none.

 

Another swing on another walker. _Two._ A swing to the side of the head on one that turned around with a mouthful of buck. _Three._ The mouthful spills forward from its slack jaw, sloshing right onto me. Had I been at work, the blood splattering across my tank top would have carried enough evidence in trial to send anyone to prison.

 

It was easy to tell who made fatal blows and where at when working as a blood splatter analyst. Naturally, over time, I came to find just where the weakest points in the human body were when studying the trajectories of blood from the dead bodies they would come from. Defending myself from the living and the dead were the only thing I knew.

 

A high, arching line towards the center point of a curly-haired woman's head. _Four._

 

A clip to the jaw, then a crunching sound from the temples of a wrinkly man. _Five._

 

Another two swings. _Six._

 

One swing. _Seven._

 

Frustratingly, three swings. Must have been recently turned. _Eight._

 

The rest of the roamers, impatient from being disturbed from their meal, and promised another by the one who was causing the disturbance, all came towards me. They fumbled over the carcass of the stag, one even fell down. I took that chance, thrusting my bat down on the head of what used to be a teenage boy. Shame. _Nine_.

 

It’s quick, but even then, I barely had enough time to grab the knife from my thigh strap and lodge it in the forehead of a roamer with a face tattoo. Three tear drops under the left eye. Wonder what the meaning was for. Did they kill someone? Three people, possibly? Or were they honoring three family members who died? _Ten._

 

I never really sought information out about tattoos and their symbolism. My first and only boyfriend, later fiancé, talked about them at times. He always wanted to get one, but never knew of what. He couldn’t, either. His mom was a congresswoman in Ohio. They were in the public eye of prestigious officials all the time. His mom never told him he couldn’t get one, and probably would have supported his decision if he did (as long as it wasn't a face tattoo), but both would know it wouldn’t help her win reelection with so many people waiting for something to criticize them on. He was considerate like that. He always put his family first. Even before me. I respected that, because when we would start our own, I knew he would put us first.

 

The knife slides easily out of the one with the teardrops. I drop my bat, grabbing my other knife from behind me in my belt, and take two out in the same instance. _Eleven. Twelve._

 

The last one is too close. I couldn’t retract my knives in time. I twist the bottom half of my body, and kick the roamer down, using the knives in the heads of the other two like handlebars. I use the weight from them dropping and my other leg falling to retract them out of the brains.

 

As I crouch, I use the spring of my knees to hop on the walkers elbow joints. They’re missing a hand. It could have been torn off, or eaten. Most likely both, in that order. I use both knives to finish the reanimated body. _Thirteen._

 

I use the jeaned calves of my thirteenth walker to clean off my knives before placing them where they belong. My bat gets the grass to clean itself.

 

Patting down each roamer, I search for any useful items. Besides finding wallets, spare change, and receipts, there’s nothing much to acquire from them. However, I do gain two black pens, and at least six more key-rings. I use them to create brass knuckles for the inside of the gloves in my pack and belt loops to hold more things. They’re also useful for broken zippers and durable chains for when I need to secure a place that doesn’t otherwise have a lock.

 

Scanning the area around me again as I walk back over to my backpack, I take off the cloth and continue to mindlessly clasp the key-rings together. The area seems quiet enough. I dig in my pack, finding the already considerably long chain of rings. I attach another six to them. place them back. I take few sips of water to reward myself for a job well done. Then, I grab the leather-bound journal from what used to have been the laptop compartment of my bag.

 

I use one of the new pens I just obtained before skimming through the pages. I’m a third of the way through the book. Flipping through the pages riddled neatly with numbers, some circled, some scrawled, some even barely legible to the eye of the beholder, I find where i left off.

 

Using my teeth to uncap the pen, I vaguely register whether that was sanitary or not to do. I’ll rinse my mouth out with mouthwash after I finish writing, just to be sure.

 

~~**= 1,456** ~~

\+ 24

~~**= 1,480** ~~

\+ 13

**= 1,493**

 

Pleased with the number, considering the amount of time since it all began, I capped the pen back. It’s been sixty-something days since the initial outbreak. It happened so suddenly, so fast, and everywhere at once. The last few moments I had with any news source, beyond a car radio, had been from an article online. Places on the opposite side of the Earth were experiencing the same epidemic.

 

I was in the lab. In the testing room, with blood consisting of maple syrup, food coloring, and Dawn dish soap strewn hazardously around the bright white room, my apron, and face plate. Alarms were going off, but I was too busy searching the web, searching for answers, as if I was back in college doing an online test with my step-brother's laptop beside me.

 

The last word I had truly read was “FEMA,” before the computer went to reboot after a brief power outage. There was a moment where I sat in complete darkness, now locked in a closed off room that had to be key carded to have access in and out from, surrounded by fake blood.

 

When it came back on, it wouldn’t connect to the internet anymore, all pages were “not found.” I immediately threw the coverings from me, not doing any standard procedures before bolting from the vicinity. I sprinted towards my purse and jacket at my desk. Everyone was gone. I wouldn’t have even doubted the person in charge of turning the evacuation alarm was even still around. I didn't even notice that my shoe covers were still on as I drove the forty-five minute commute home. It ended up taking an extra forty-five from all the backed up traffic, even though it was a back route.

 

I had been on the phone with Spencer, my boyfriend, the entire time. He had counted on his mom and family to be done with their whole campaign advertising sooner. There had been rumors of some virus going around for a few days, and his family and him were expecting to come out from Virginia and to South Carolina to coup up with some other family members that were living in some huge mansion with a bunker in the backyard. We had been there together, once, for Christmas the year before last. Their mansion wasn’t as big as the Monroe’s, but it was still as fancy and lavish as any other heavily involved political and military family clan with history and success in the stock market would be.

 

It was later that same evening, as we laughed and chased each other around in the snow outside in the wide open plain of his uncle’s front lawn, did he get down on one knee and propose with a double banded engagement diamond ring. Although he never told me the cost, his brother, Aiden, cockily stated at dinner afterwards that it cost more than his own car. Which, admittedly, was on the pricier side. He didn’t drive it much, as he was almost always away for ROTC. The last I spoke to Aiden, he was close to receiving a lieutenant's commission, and was in the car with Spencer and the their parents while we were last on the phone, barking out questions to someone who wasn’t Spencer.

 

The last thing I told Spencer was that I loved him, that I was scared, that I worried about him. The last thing he told me was that he loved me, everything would be fine, and that he needed to get off the phone soon.

 

The last thing I would ever hear from him were confused mutterings, followed by terror-filled screams. I could hear his entire family — my future family — shriek in fear and possibly agony.

 

I had cried in my car, on the steering wheel, our engagement ring pressing on my forehead as I rested my head against my hands, sobbing. My car was still on, the last radio broadcast I would ever hear again reciting how to handle people affected that were too far gone. I was the only car in the parking garage.

 

But I wasn’t the only person.

 

The first roamer I killed was a woman who I never talked to before, but saw around the parking lot frequently. She had the same car as me, a Toyota Prius. We smiled at each other sometimes, giving nods of acknowledgment now and then. We never spoke a word to each other. And we never would.

 

She came out of nowhere, and I wondered why she would have even still been there at the apartments. She wasn’t fast, she was just determined. She banged against my driver’s side window. She clawed at the glass. She made so many hissing sounds. It was like a cicada. She didn’t even have a bottom jaw. She didn’t even have the front half of her torso. I could see bone. I could see her insides still spilling out from her. I could see the trail she left all the way to the elevator. She was too far gone, no way was she alive.

 

I had used a mail opener that I had taken from work. I shoved the sharp instrument between her eyes, my grief taking over me. I didn’t even realize I had done it until I was rolling the slight sliver of window back up and it got caught in the glass. I wept like a baby as her dark blood trailed down my window. My fiancé and his family were dead. I was a murderer or a savior, the confusion of what I had just done fogging my rationality. Thinking of what family I had left only fueling my loneliness. I hadn’t spoken to my step mom and step-siblings since the day I graduated college. I was completely and utterly by myself.

 

But I coped with my losses. I ran in my apartment and sat in there for hours, thinking. I grabbed an unused journal and I did the math. Math was simple and factual. It didn't lie unless I did it wrong, but I was only aiming for a quotation, not a solid answer. I calculated what I could. It was nothing but rough estimates, approximations. I did the math and gave myself goals, aspirations. I grabbed everything I possibly could, all the supplies I had. And when I realized that wasn’t enough, I broke into my neighbors apartments and repeated the process. It took days, doing calculations, observing out the windows, busting down doors, before I left the apartment. It would have taken longer had I the say in it. The only reason I left was because they started to bomb the city.

 

I changed the math after that. And in the end, I had a theory. I had a variable, a goal, a theorem.

 

The living was outnumbered, that much was obvious. But by how much? I spent my time in the phone books, but nothing ever really helped. I threw a number in the air, and even if it was wrong, it was a magic number. A number that would put me at ease when I settled my score, my payment to the world.

 

5,000:1. There was roughly — very roughly — 5,000 roamers to every living person.

 

I would finish those 5,000 people. I would make sure they didn’t have to have their bodies roaming around the world, eating other people. I would make that my primary focus, beyond just surviving. I would survive, but only until I finished those miserable 5,000. What came after was unknown to me. I would just need to figure it out when the time came, if it ever did. The ratio would change overtime, no doubt. It had to, but depending on how the world was by the time I got to my end goal, I would decide if I needed to stick around any longer, or if it was all just a lost cause.

 

Here I was, in the woods, hunting down roamers and lost souls. The count was 1,493 so far. It was 9:30am, and the day was young.


	2. Lost

Whack. _Six._

 

Blam. _Seven._

 

Crunch. _Eight_.

 

The last body slumped to the ground. I happily jogged forward, a smile on my face. It was already around 4:30pm, I would need to find shelter soon, and my count wasn’t as high as it could be, but at least I got some today. There were considerably lesser around this area, and I wondered if the herd I saw a few days ago was actually behind me now. That couldn’t be, though. Maybe they had taken a detour somewhere?

 

As I bent down to wipe the blood from my bat, a cold hand with crusted blood under the nails reached out for my ankle. A bashed in head came forward, mouth open and ready around my ankle. I stumbled back, briefly surprised, but stayed calm. I reached for my knife, and took care of the roamer, but it was too late. I was bitten. The teeth marks on my boots were heavily indented, but there wasn’t pain. Panicked, I shook off my boot, and inspected the ankle. No, it didn’t go through. It almost did, but it didn’t. Almost did, but it didn’t.

 

Almost did, but it didn’t. Almost did, but it didn’t. 

 

I reached into my bag after putting my boot back on, and scrawled in the count. 

 

**~~= 1,531~~ **

      + 3

**~~= 1,534~~ **

      + 8

**= 1,542**

 

I shoved my stuff back in my bag, and went to get up. I had been sticking fairly well to the highway, but just off of it. Was I reading the map wrong? I never had used one before this all started, sticking to my GPS, but this was feeling strange. The herd wasn’t in the woods anymore, maybe they went on the highway? There had to be signs they were there, too. 

 

I walked more off to the side, aiming towards the highway. 

 

A scream pierced the air. Girl. Young. Shrill. Panicked.

 

And my legs did the work for me.

 

Running towards the sound, I was doubtful for a second if I was just going towards the echo of it, or to the source. Whether or not I was, I would try my best to help this person. Sometimes, it was too late, or just a lost cause. I made myself a mission to take down a certain amount of them, but even I knew when too much were just too much, or if creating a distraction was more helpful than adding to the count. 

 

As I continued to think about what may or may not be a survivor’s death, I realized I was going at a diagonal, and the sounds of crunching leaves were to my right. They were too fast to be a roamer, and too hard to be girl. I glanced up.

 

Climb a tree.

 

Taking the base of the trunk with both hands, I braced myself against it before jumping up on a branch and continuing upwards until I was safely hidden in the branches of leafs.

 

I looked down and was startled for a moment. A man. Sweaty t-shirt and faded jeans. Boots. Panting. Looking around frantically. He had only briefly paused for a second to put a hand on the very tree I was on. He yells, and I grip the bark of the trunk tighter in my hands.

 

“Sophia!” He calls, and sprints forward after a snapping sound from the direction he was running towards earlier. 

 

I remain still in the tree before jumping down. Did another person take a girl? Was it his daughter? Did she get scared from a roamer? Was she being chased?

 

Jolted out of my thoughts, and shaking my head once, I jumped out of the tree. I landed on all fours, and felt my right foot get pins and needles in it. I landed on it wrong, but it wasn’t a sprain or broken bone anything. It did make me running after in the man’s direction more like an awkward skip, though. It was like a roamer’s walk, and I felt a bit of panic in if I would be mistaken as one if anyone saw me from the back. I wasn’t clean in the slightest, and I hadn’t looked in a mirror since leaving my apartment, but besides my walk, I’m sure I didn’t look more than, at most, half dead. Hopefully.

 

I stopped, and hid behind a tree. The man was talking to a little girl — Sophia? — with short hair and a doll. Her eyes were wide, her mouth open in a traumatized state, and I felt my heart shatter a little. He was telling her to hide in a cove. If he didn’t come back, she was to go back to the highway. To the others. Keep the sun on her left shoulder. I tightened my jaw. She was nodding, but I wondered what the man was going to do, if there were people chasing after him and the girl, or if there were roamers. 

 

The bushes rustled to my left, and to the girl’s back. The man turned her around and bustled her in the cove. I could barely see her myself.

 

Two roamers came stumbling out, falling down but standing straight as they went down the mossy grove. So it was the dead chasing them, was it?

 

The man yelled, “Come on!” And taunted them his way, splashing water upwards. The roamers were excited. The man continued, leading them away from the cove, effectively leading them away from the girl.

 

I contemplated. Should I go after the man? He was alone with two roamers, but i didn’t see a weapon on him. Did I? Or should I go to the girl? The girl would stay in the cove, wouldn’t she, until he got back? Maybe if I went after him, he would get back to the girl faster? I leaned more on my room foot, trying to get the feeling back, and maybe to take off in the man’s direction.

 

But the girl came out. I turned my head back to her. She was leaving, already? The man was distracting the roamers, but he would come back for her. I glanced up at the sky, and then at my watch. It was 5:15pm. It would get dark soon. And it looked wet in that cove. She probably thought about her chances, and decided to go back as soon as possible. I felt my heart tug. 

 

I would go after her, take her to where she needed to be, and then back to help that man. Hopefully fast, or else the sun would beat me.

 

I dragged my right foot behind me, my bat still in my hand, and made up my mind. 

 

The girl was careful, but fast. She paid special attention to the sky, making sure to keep her left shoulder jutting out. She was so skinny, I felt my heart strings tug again. She looked so fragile.

 

And then I heard it. The girl didn’t, but I did. A hiss. A soft gurgle. I scowled. A roamer. To the left of her.

 

The girl kept trudging forward, still going in the right direction. I went off to that side where the roamer was, and held my bat at the ready. It had its eyes on the girl.

 

As I crept towards it, my right foot remained numb. Maybe I wouldn’t make it to the roamer fast enough?

 

It would have to come to me. But the girl would hear me. 

 

I debated.

 

Or the girl could come to me?

 

“Hey,” I said, and heard it crack. I cleared my throat. I hadn’t used my voice in awhile. “Hey!” I called out. The girl whipped her head around, searching, before seeing me, her eyes that were once filled with determination and uneasiness were now full of nothing but horror. I halted in my forward strut.

 

Oh.

 

I was still holding my bat at the ready. I still had blood all over my front. I still was a stranger just walking around in the woods. 

 

Oh, what a great first impression.

 

“I—” before I could say anything more, the girl bolted, off to her right. I opened my mouth again, to call out, but then a growling sound from behind me. I twisted hard, feeling my ribs bemoan, and shoved my bat at the roamer behind me. It was the one going after the girl earlier. I did get it to come towards me, unintentionally.

 

“Fuck,” I mumbled to myself as it went down. One.

 

I turned back to the area the girl was last, and took off towards the direction she ran in, but from the point I was still standing in. I scared her off, and I wasn’t good with tracking people or things by their footprints, but by an outsider perspective. I could see her better from an area point than by retracing her steps. 

 

It took only a few minutes before I found her again. She was crying. She had her hand on a tree, panting, just like the man had done. And there was a male roamer with long hair stumbling towards her, and she didn’t even know it. Her left shoulder was still propelled out. I didn’t even think about it. I ran up to the girl, thrusting her back, and shoved my bat in the mouth of the roamer. There was still flesh on the bat from the roamer I took out after scaring the girl off. The roamer gnawed on it, and I retracted my bat, aiming to end this one’s extended life, when the girl ran off again.

 

Fuck it, I thought.

 

I ran after the girl again, not wanting to lose her. It was already a dark blue outside, I wouldn’t be able to spot her if she kept running as night fell.

 

My right foot got feeling again, and I full out sprinted towards her. 

 

“Stop! I’m trying to help you, damn it!” I shouted, and the girl tripped over a large tree root. Her doll fell down, over a small but deep, dried out river basin. She reached for it, meagerly, before turning around to me, her face scrunched from crying, and her entire body shaking. She was scared. She had been scared this entire time. But not of a person. Not until now, at least. 

 

Her hazel eyes had terror, defeat, and pure sadness etched in them. I frowned, not sure what to say, and fidgeted a little.

 

“Listen, I’m not going to hurt you,” I said, but she didn’t even try to pretend to believe me. I ran a hand through my hair, and some fell back in my face again. “I swear, I’m not. I promise. I’m trying to help you. Is your name Sophia?”

 

She used her arms to back further away from me, aiming to go down that grove of dirt leading down to that dried river to get away from me.

 

“You were with a man in cowboy boots. He called your name, I think. He led two roamers away from you. He told you to go back to the highway to your people. Keep the sun on your left shoulder.” She froze, listening to me. I deflated a little bit. She was actually listening to me, and not just lost in her thoughts on how to get away from me.

 

“I don’t know if he was your dad or not, but I’m just trying to help, I swear. The sun’s going down, and you won’t know if you’re going in the right direction anymore, you’ll only get lost. I reckon there’s a car or two on the highway, too, so I can get a place to hole up in, and you can get to your people. And besides, even if you were to run away from me, I’d know where you’re going, wouldn’t I?” I chuckled, jokingly, but froze, processing what I said. That didn’t sound that friendly at all.

 

Her breath hitched and she jolted to her knees, crawling towards the basin, and falling downwards. I reached my hand out in vain, but it was too late. I was such an idiot.

 

I peered over the edge of the dirt, and tensed. The girl was laying unconscious, sprawled over the ground in the water. Was she even alive?

 

Meticulously placing my bat in my backpack, the handle sticking out beyond the enclosing zippers, I grabbed a vine from a tree nearby, and used my hog knife to cut another. I tied them together in a triple knot, just to be sure, and made my way downwards. Before this all started, I would take jogs everyday around the city, music blasting in my ears, right after work. I built stamina up from those times. I would think about the case I was on the entire time, making plans for later that evening, or debate on what to wear to dinner with Spencer. Those were the times I took to stay active, to think about pressing matters, to focus on myself. I was never one for calisthenics, but cardio was my forte.

 

It was in this moment, however, as I climbed down the steep hill, picking up a still breathing Sophia, did I realize how much I should have gotten into something that required a bit more weight. Sophia was skinny, and small, but the most weight I’d been carrying around these last few months was only my bat and backpack. I had shoved bodies off of me, yes, but I didn’t need to carry them as I climbed myself and it up what could have been a mountain to me. 

 

I was a sweaty, panting mess as I got up to the edge, and I felt nothing but sheer relief at seeing flat, high ground before my eyes. Finally, we were back to the top.

 

The sky was a deep purple and blue, light grey clouds littering it like swirls. I could barely see any stars. I could barely see beyond a few trees in front of me.

 

I heard leaves crunching further in front of me. I tightened my grip on the girl.

 

What was I getting myself into?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kept writing "walkers" instead of "roamers." If there's a sip above, just comment, and I'll gladly fix it (:


	3. Walk

 

Trudging through a forest in the dark wasn’t something new to me. Trudging through the forest with an unconscious little girl in my arms was what was.

 

It felt awkward, and kind of scary, to say the least, to be holding a fragile being in my arms after so long of being alone. The last baby I ever held was years ago. A colleague from work had just gotten back from maternity leave, and brought her baby up to work the day before she was to come in. We were having a “Welcome Back” party. The baby was named William, was a few months old, and did nothing but cry the entire time. I almost busted into tears with it as I held it in my arms. 

 

I was overwhelmed with emotions, newly engaged, and just finished working with the forensic evidence team for a big-shot case the day before. The colleague — Regina, I believe? — gave me weird looks the entire time, fingers twitching for her child as I cooed and cuddled at it with tears in my eyes. Rightly so, I believe. I wouldn't let the baby go the entire time I was at the party. The baby had eventually stopped crying, and it made me fall in love even more. I was always a sucker for babies. However, that day, it was so bad.

 

Regina kept her distance from me as soon as she got her baby back, and even when she forgave me once I apologized a dozen times over, she and the department made jokes for the next few weeks over it. Regina eventually left her job, became a stay-at-home mom, and I would see her and her son at the market sometimes. 

  

I would never see them, or my entire department, again. Alive or dead, the way they were then is in the past now. It was easy to not think about the past when you’re spending every waking moment trying to survive the present.

 

Even more so when you had to take care of another living human being. 

 

I carried Sophia — that had to be her name, it had to, even if she didn't confirm it when I asked — to an abandoned Baptist church a bit of a way from the highway. The sign said they even accepted bikers to come in. I debated on going in the front, then thought better of it, and climbed up the roof instead. I used the key-ring rope from my bag to tie Sophia on my back, my backpack attached backwards on my front. 

 

I hadn't been this winded since I took down my first horde. There had been 30-something of them and I was trapped in a tree. The only weapons I had consisted of three shotgun rounds, a bear knife, and not a lot of patience. I ended up breaking a few of the tree's branches, wrapping unfolded key-rings to the ends with bandage tape, and stabbing through the tops of their heads. When I ran out of key-rings that always got stuck in the heads, I resorted to my knife. It seemed to take all day, but I took them all down, slowly and methodically, without using any of my rounds. When I fell down on top of the bodies, I saw just how close to death I had been. The tree was just about ready to fall.

 

 

This church was sturdy, and almost looked untouched from the rest of the world. I wondered just where I was. Somewhere rural, no doubt. No way was I reading this map correctly. I was so exhausted from carrying Sophia around, I didn’t even bother taking off her restraints that were still on her. It was too much effort, and with the possibility of her waking up before me, potentially attacking me, I didn’t want to risk her falling off the side of the roof, either, it wasn’t even flat anywhere. 

 

I leaned against the corner of the jointing roofs, leaned my head back, and fell fast asleep. I woke up several times in the night. At first, it was the roughness of the shingles, but I grabbed a blanket from my bag and laid it behind me. I leaned back, scrawled in the count of the day, and placed everything back in my bag. 

 

The second time, it was from the cold breeze. I grabbed a spare jacket from my bag, wrapping myself in it. It was the second time that had me wide awake. Sophia was curled in as tight of a ball as possible, and shivering away.

 

Shimmying out of my jacket, I wrapped it around Sophia's form, and then grabbed the blanket, pushing away from me, and rolling Sophia on it. We were at a down sloping angle, but we remained vertical to it, allowing us not to roll down to the bottom. No roamers were around, but they could always stagger by.  

 

I rested down on my back again, Sophia closer beside me, and closed my eyes. I couldn't go completely to sleep, but rested. Time slipped through my mind that night, and I felt like I was falling repeatedly, being jolted awake each time, heart racing. It wasn't a good night, even if the stars were particularly bright.

 

As soon as I felt my leg being pulled down and me falling flat to the ground, I jolted forward. Just another daydream. Another half awake-half asleep dream. Adrenaline pumped through my veins. I laid flat down, taking deep breaths, trying to calm myself. I checked my watch at that time, watching 2:59am turn to 3:00am.

 

Like clockwork, Sophia woke up in that very moment. I turned my head, surprised to see a quiet and wide-eyed Sophia staring straight at me. Her chest was heaving, panic etching in her features, and I took my chances in talking to her again. 

 

“Okay, before you say anything, listen to me. We're on the roof of a Baptist church, it's exactly three in the middle of the night, and you're tied in key-rings to make sure you don't topple off the edge, or kill me,” I explain, and feel pretty damn good about being so clear with everything. Sophia, however, did not think so.

 

“You're going to hurt me, aren't you?” She questions. Resignation, fear, and distaste flare up to her eyes, and I just feel dirty. Suddenly, I feel like I'm a bad person, even though I know I wasn't, just from how she was looking at me. The first thing she says to me just had to be that, didn't it?

 

“No, I won't,” I say, staying calm. I feel disgusting. “I'm just trying to help. I carried you from that basin you fell down. Took all my energy, but I climbed out of there with you. Carried you here, then carried you up. It's safer in high places.” 

 

“Why not inside?” She asks, hesitantly. She furrows deeper in my jacket, looks at it, then raises her eyebrows. She must have just realized what exactly was around her, beyond the chains.

 

“I didn't know what might be in there,” I say, deciding to just act normal, a quiet breeze following afterwards, somewhat filling the silence.

  

I tried too hard on our last encounter, and screwed up. I was going to be more of myself, and if I messed up even as that, then I at least would be better equipped to defend my actions. “It was dark, and didn't want to risk taking on anymore roamers with my hands full. Not that I'm complaining or anything, but it would have been pretty hard, don't ya think?” I ask, and Sophia uncomfortably fidgets, nodding her head. She was agreeing with me for the sake of agreeing.

 

I clear my throat, uncomfortable again with being the “bad guy.” I needed to approach this as if she was a child. I’ve been treating her like an adult, but maybe that was wrong.

 

“Is your name Sophia?” I ask, going back to square one. A point in conversation I should have stayed on, instead of just plowing through all formalities. “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours,” I say, thinking back to my childhood days, hopefully being more relatable.

 

“Yes,” she says, softly, unsure on what was too much information to give or not, or maybe on whether or not I already knew all the information I needed. I did kind of threaten I knew more than she could hide earlier, hadn’t I? God, I really was acting like the bad guy.

 

“I'm Lila. Lila Reed, if you wanted my last name, too. I don't know if last names even matter anymore, but at least now you know a little bit more about me than I do you, yeah?” I say, smiling a bit. Sophia doesn't retreat further in my jacket, and I take that as a win in itself. She stays quiet.

 

“I'm going to help you, Sophia,” my hand glides to the back of my head, the uncomfortable feeling from the roof causing it to ache. “I know you don't trust me, but I mean it. In three hours, we'll be off again, going back to the highway. I'm sure your people are worried about you.” A common goal. That was what I needed to give Sophia, right?

 

“Why help me?” She asks, maintaining the short responses.

 

“I like to help. I like knowing I'm making a difference. I try to help out every day. Wanna see?” I say, reaching to my backpack. She flinches backwards, and I slow down. I smile, reassuringly, and steadily drag my journal back from the dark shadows of my bag. Sophia peers over the collar of my olive green jacket at it.

 

“I keep a count of how many I take out each day. Those things…” I sigh, tiredness clear, and shake my head.

 

Sophia mumbles something. “Sorry, come again?” I ask, truly not knowing what she said.

 

“Walkers,” she states, louder, but hushed. As if it’s a forbidden word.

 

“Yes, walkers,” I say, interest piqued by the new name. “Huh,” I say, amused, “that’s a better name for them than I’ve been saying.”

 

“Roamers,” she states, again, but more prideful than last time. Proud she picked up on what quirks I’ve been dropping since we met. She isn’t as scared as that name as much as the one she’s been using.

 

“Those walkers,” I emphasize, taking care in using the common lingo, “have been everywhere, as you noticed. They’re even crossed the seas. I did some math, here and there, and came up with an idea on how many there may be compared to us.” I hand over my journal to her, remembering the last number I placed in there. She stares at it for a moment, thoughtful. I patiently wait, keeping the book an arm’s distance from us. She tentatively reaches out, her small hand grasping the spine, and unclasps the leather. I scan the tree-line around us.

 

I hear as she flips through the pages, pausing every now and then. A glance to the side and I see her eyes going back and forth across the pages. I had left comments on some pages, statements on their behavior, notes on what I had been needing more of. Always needing more.

 

“Is this true?” She asks, and I feel almost offended. She makes eye contact, and I frown.

 

“It’s true,” I blurt, “I don’t go around, walking everywhere, writing numbers down for the fun of it.” I cross my arms, my chin tipping forward.

 

The right side of her mouth twitches up, then flattens down again. She runs her fingers over the pages, looks back up at me, and then hands the book over. She rubs at the rings.

 

It’s awkwardly silent.

 

“I lived about forty minutes out of the city. Atlanta, I mean.” My mouth was moving before I really thought about it. “I was cooped up in my apartment building for a while. Mourning, confused, angry. Came up with a number, came up with a plan. From there, I just went at every one of ‘em that I saw. I was so bad, at first. Almost killed myself, and hurt myself plenty. It was really rough.”

 

Sophia just stares at me, her teeth gnawing at her bottom lip.

 

“I finally started to learn, though. No TV or radio broadcast really helps you when you get out from behind four walls. Eventually, I lost my transportation to a herd of those biters. I’m all for taking out a bunch in one swoop, but I know when’s too many are too many. ‘Been walking around for the last few weeks, trying to find a car that runs. They’re a lot more comfortable than what I’ve been spending my nights in or on.”

 

Sophia stops gnawing her lip, and sighs. She looked incredibly tired for someone who just slept twelve hours. Then again, she did fall down and get knocked unconscious. 

 

I didn’t say she had to say anything, but she does. 

 

“I do have a group,” she states. “They’re nice people. We’re from Atlanta. There’s a lot of them. We were on our way out, trying to get even farther, go somewhere else. But we got stuck on the highway. There were a lot of cars, but one of the people’s RV got messed up. Needed a part. We were just looking around when a bunch of walkers came through. We were hiding under the cars, letting them pass. It was so quiet, I was sure they had all left. I was so sure,” her voice wobbles, and she roughly rubs at her eyes, trying not to cry. I keep my mouth shut, and wait.

 

“I started to crawl out. But one of them was just right there. I went back on the other side, and then there was another. I went off the rail, into the forest. I figured I could outrun them, or lose them. But they were always right behind me. Mr. Grimes — he’s really nice, and helps make a lot of our decisions, he used to be the sheriff, and he has his family there, too — he found me. He helped me. He told me to hide, then go back to the highway. You saw me, called my name, and I ran. Then a walker found me. He was going to eat me. I was sure of it, and I wanted to fight, but I didn’t know how. You helped me. But I ran, and got hurt, and woke up chained to a roof.” 

 

My mouth opened, closed, and then opened again. I didn’t know what to really say.

 

“They’re looking for you,” I say, and quickly add on, “I saw Mr. Grimes running super fast. He looked like hell. Thought it was your dad.”

 

Sophia adjusts her hips. “I don’t have a dad anymore. I have a mom, and she’s always there for me. She doesn’t let me get hurt.” I smile at the simplistic wording. 

 

“No, and I won’t, either. I’ll take you back to them, and then she can gush all about you.” I lie back on my side, ready to go back to sleep. Today was so tiring. Not the worst, but tiring.

 

“What will you do after that?” Sophia asks, and I wonder what she expects to hear.

 

“I’ll see if any of those cars still work on the highway. Fuel that sits in a vehicle for a while can affect the way it functions, too. I’m sure a bunch of stuff is just sitting in those cars, too.”

 

“There is,” Sophia nods.

 

I grin, clapping my hands together once, slightly startling her. “Then that’s the plan. If it all works out, I’m set. We won’t see each other again, which means I won’t be tying you up anymore, either. Bet that’ll help you rest easier.” I chuckle, turning my back to her, expecting the conversations to end.

 

I hear rustling, metal scratching lightly against each other, and let my imagination reassure me it’s just Sophia turning over, too.

 

As I begin to go limp, sleepiness making me feel heavy, eyes relaxing under my eyelids, Sophia speaks quicjly, and a little loud after such a long silence.

 

“Goodnight.”

 

I twitch, and feel wonder if she feels any more trusting of me. We basically have a professional relationship at the moment. 

 

“Sleep tight,” it’s mumbled, but it’s something.

 

 

* * *

 

 

When I wake up, it’s from how bright the sun is shining in my face. I stretch my arms up, and my legs down, arching my back. I hear and feel my joints pop, my back aching, my head pounding. Roofs were not comfortable. 

 

I’m yawning as I shift my body around, looking to Sophia. She’s sitting up with her hands supporting her from behind, her legs splayed out, head tipped back to look at the sky. She’s not in the chains anymore.

 

She speaks first.

 

“Before you ask,” she says slowly, eyeing me cautiously. She’s ready to careen off this roof any second. “I didn’t go to sleep. I spent it undoing the links. I used to do that with my mom’s car keys.” 

 

I laugh, but only for a second. “Smart kid,” I mutter, and start to gather my things. The links are back in my bag, and I note how I’m missing one of my smaller knives from there. It’s one I use to cut at ropes, or ties, or fish, not wanting to dull the hog knives I keep to my being. 

 

Rolling up my blanket, I place it back inside the bag.

 

We’re both standing on the roof now. My jacket and backpack are back on my shoulders, and I’m fiddling with the straps. Sophia fidgets, not knowing what to do with her hands.

 

“You can keep the knife on you,” I say, cutting to the chase, and Sophia’s chin goes back up, defiant. She doesn’t care that I caught on. “You can, but at least put it somewhere convenient, no need to hide it from me anymore. Maybe put it in your capris, in the back, where the waistband is. Tuck your shirt behind it, though. It’ll be easier to pull out.” Sophia doesn’t make a move as I turn to jump down the slope. 

 

“If you don’t believe me,” I say, patiently, “check it out.” I pull the backpack straps a little higher on my shoulders, revealing the knife there.

 

I’m back down in the dirt, and look up to Sophia. She’s staring down at me, then the ground, just balancing on the edge of the trim. She looks uneasy. Is she afraid of heights?

 

“Don’t worry,” I console, albeit weird. “You can do it. Just jump, keeping your feet under you. Extend your arms out, just in case.” She looks even more uncomfortable. She rubs at her scratched and bruised arms, wincing. They must be sensitive.

 

“Hey, just jump here,” I extend my arms out, motioning my fingers towards me. “I can catch you.”

 

Sophia takes a couple deep breaths, me chanting the same “you can do it”’s and “you got this”’ before I see the movement.

 

She extends her foot out, and the next thing I know, the impact of her body is against mine, causing me to topple over. My bag’s contents and knife’s handle jut painfully to my lower back as lie on the ground. Sophia is breathing heavily, standing back to her feet, and offering her hand to me. I grab it, but mostly get up on my own, trying not to pull her down with me.

 

She looks nervous, and I feel slightly giddy. I laugh, and she stares, wide-eyed, more confused than anxious now. 

 

“Don’t know why I didn’t expect that,” I explain, shaking my head a bit. Sophia lets a soft, hesitant smile light up her face. She looks less weary.

 

“I’m sorry,” she says, and I pat her head, fondly. 

 

“No worries,” I lead us to the left, where the sun is highest. “let’s just get you to where you belong.” 

 

Sophia nods her head, her hands in front of her, fingers laced together. It’s like she’s holding something invisible.

 

We’re a little more than halfway to where Sophia fell down the basin when we hear it. 

 

A gunshot.

 

Sophia jumps, and I grab her arm, tucking her down with me. She tries to struggle before realizing I’m down with her, an arm over her, my other arm holding my gun out from us. Her eyes are wide and frightened, but I only see a glance of them as I dart my eyes around our surroundings. It sounded close, but echoing. It was in these forests, for sure.

 

“Your people,” I start, looking at Sophia, making immediate eye contact with her. “How likely was is it that was them?” 

 

Sophia looks confused. “I—I don’t know. They have other weapons besides a gun, if that’s what you mean?” She doesn’t know how to answer because she doesn’t know herself.

 

I nod anyway, realizing again how inconsiderate I’ve been to her age. It’s not even that she looks older or anything — she is quite small — but that I’m out of touch. I used to know how to talk to people. I used to be better with words. I should go read a book or something. Everyone’s dead; I can’t even go observe how others have a conversation.

 

We get up, Sophia burying herself behind me as I turn in a circle, looking around. I was out of touch with how to interact with living people, but not the dangerous or dead type. Always be alert of your surroundings. Always be alert. That was the number one rule now, one I can’t always follow when by myself. Even with other friendlies, it was always hard. Our time together would always be short. Just like how mine and Sophia’s will be.

 

I lead us in the direction we were going, but can’t shake the gunshot from earlier. From the looks of it, neither can Sophia. She looks worried.

 

“I’m sure they used it against a walker,” I say, trying to reassure myself and her. “I mean, if they have other weapons, maybe they were forced to pull out their gun. It might have saved them.”

 

Sophia shakes her head. “But then they could have also still got hurt.”

 

I remain quiet, contemplating. She’s not wrong.

 

“Let’s just hurry and find them. Then, we’ll get your answer.” Sophia looks at me, and I can’t place the look. She nods her head.

 

It’s another silent walk. I exchanged my gun for my bat again. We go another thirty minutes before I hear Sophia’s stomach growl. I halt in my steps, and Sophia tries to keep going, brushing it off.

 

“Hey, I may walk around the woods by myself, but I do carry food with me,” I say, pretending to be miffed by her dismissive reaction to her own body’s dismay.

 

“It’s fine,” she utters, embarrassed. “If we make it back quick, there will be food there.” 

 

I start bustling in taking my backpack off, Sophia reluctantly turning towards me from up ahead. I’m rummaging through, trying to find something we could both share, seeing mostly cans.

 

Chocolate bar. Big Kat bar. Baked beans. Black beans. Pinto Beans. Peas. Corn. Peaches. Pineapples. A protein bar. A fig bar. A peanut butter jar. And one lone Chicken Noodle soup can. The name brand type, too. I decided, out of anything, that is the most valuable to me.

 

I pull out the baked beans, a spoon, and a can opener. I shake the can at Sophia as she gets closer, and hand her the spoon. I make work with the can opener, and throw the lid on the bed of leaves below our feet. 

 

“Hope you don’t mind sharing,” I say, and she takes a bite. She closes her eyes and savors the taste, and I wonder just how hungry she really was, and how many times her stomach might have growled without me hearing it. 

 

She starts to turn back around, walking again, but I protest by making squawking noises. 

 

“We’re gonna sit and eat,” I declare, letting my backpack slide from my only shoulder, the sound of it slumping to the ground is the same sound my body does when I go with it.

 

Sophia takes more bites, sitting down with me. I fiddle with my gloves, waiting. She hands me the can again, taking care to wipe the spoon she used on her capris. I smile, warmed by her thoughtfulness, although it wouldn’t have mattered to me how the spoon looked. I see that the can is halfway full, and I take to eating it down a little past a third before handing it back to Sophia. She looks surprised.

 

“I’m not super hungry,” I express, shrugging. I was hungry, yes, but not starving. Not super hungry. 

 

Sophia takes the outstretched can, enjoying the rest. As she hands me the spoon once she places the can down beside her feet, I try to hand her the fig bar, too.

 

She shakes her head. “No, I’m full, it’s fine.”

 

I say nothing, just shaking it again towards her. “Really.” She affirms.

 

I sigh through my nose, looking exasperatedly around us, even to the sky, looking at where the sun is and slightly squinting afterwards.

 

Sophia sighs, more harshly, taking the fig bar begrudgingly. I smile, pleased.

 

We sit there again, just enjoying the quiet. Sophia, I note, likes Fig bars. I can tell by how much more her lips are tilted up, how she savors each bite even more than the beans. She’s actually enjoying the taste of this, and tries to make it last by taking smaller bites. I smile a bit more at the observation. 

 

When she’s done, we go back to our original direction. I feel more content knowing she is, although my stomach churns every now and then, I tell Sophia it’s just digesting when she gives me a knowing look. 

 

“How old are you?” I ask, finally, after noting how I still don’t know much about her. She stares around us, stares ahead, and then stares at me.

 

“Twelve,” she expounds. “and a half.” she adds as an afterthought. I nod my head,

 

“That’s about my estimate,” I say, a bit proud. 

 

“How old are you?” She asks me now.

 

“What do you think I look like?” I ask, challenging. 

 

“Umm…” she trails off, looking upwards. My eyes are everywhere.”Twenties, thirties?”

 

I smirk. “Gotta be more exact, kid. Of course I’m in that age range. That’s twenty years of life you’re talking about.” 

 

Sophia smiles, but it’s small. “Twenty-four — no, twenty-five.”

 

I raise my brows. “Woah, spot on. The second one.” I whistle, impressed.

 

Sophia smiles full out now, a skip in her step for a moment. I realize, right there, how young she looks. I feel my heart go out of my chest as I think of how much her childhood has changed, how much it will continue to change. She’s so young.

 

“My momma said I was smart with my observations. Mr. Dixon did, too.” Her smile briefly fades out. I can’t tell if her face got tired, or her thoughts caught up to her. 

 

“Was he a teacher of yours?” Might as well ask.

 

Sophia shakes her head. “We hardly talked, but he’s a man in the group I’m in. He’s not a bad guy, but he looks like one. He isn’t mean. He’s rough, though. I’ve seen him break a lot of stuff, but not on purpose.”

 

“How do you know the difference between ‘on purpose’ and ‘by accident’?” I say, offhandedly.

 

Sophia frowns, harder than ever before. Her eyebrow twitches. “I know the difference. I’ve seen a lot of stuff break.”

 

I want to ask, “Did you find that out before or after everything changed?” But I stay quiet. This is the second time I’ve noticed her vagueness. The implication that she knew danger all too well before the world changed.

 

We’re strolling through the trees, not talking anymore. I wonder how far the highway really is anymore, and feel a little bit of concern on if Sophia’s group is still there. They would have to be, wouldn’t they? She still had her mom in the group, and a mother would never leave her child. A brief, fleeting thought passes in the back of my mind.

 

What if they’re all dead?

 

I furrow my brows, shaking the thought from my head. They seem smart, from what Sophia has implied. At least one person could survive from that group, surely?

 

Sophia stops in her amble, and I worry if I said anything aloud. 

 

“What if no one’s there for me?” She asks, biting her bottom lip to relieve the tension in her shoulders and neck. She was on the same thought process as me.

 

“Your mom’s in that group, Sophia. They’re still there. And if they’re not, it’s because they got pushed out. They might have left something there for you, telling you where they are. Or where they’ll be waiting. I don’t know their ideas, but I know what a situation can call for.” Reassuringly, I walk over to her, and pat her head. My father used to do that to me, when I was Sophia’s height. It helped me realize not to let my thoughts get the best of me, to slow down, and concentrate on the now. I wonder if it’s helping Sophia in that way, and not just an awkward pat from a stranger.

 

She nods her head, trying to convince herself what I’m saying is true. I smile when she looks up from her shoes, and nod once. 

 

“I once got lost as a kid.” I say, removing my palm, and letting it rest on my hip. “In a supermarket. My dad was still reeling from my mom passing away, and so was I. It was the first time we went to the store after it happened. My dad wasn’t big on shopping, it was always my mom that did it. I would always go with her, one hand on the cart, the other in hers.” I swallow a lump in my throat. My hand was still warm from Sophia’s head, and the phantom feeling of my mother’s caused them to twitch.

 

Sophia stares at nothing but my face.

 

“My dad had made a long list, ready to just knock it all out. He was stampeding through those isles, causing us to get odd looks. I got distracted by a guide dog for a blind man, the only person in the store who wasn’t looking at my dad like he was crazy. I had never seen one, and was fascinated by it. It moved seamlessly around some palettes that were in the middle of the bigger isles. And I lost sight of my dad. I couldn’t find him. I didn’t scream, or run, I just stood in the cereal isle, crying.”

 

Sophia frowned, tilting her head slightly. 

 

“I was holding some Cheerios to my chest, getting the cardboard all wet, when a woman came up to me. She looked scary. I thought she was going to kidnap me. I started crying harder, thinking I was gonna get taken away. She picked me up, took me around the store, and I tried to scream, I did, but nothing came out of my mouth. My brain wasn’t working right, I was in shock.”

 

“Did your dad find you?” Sophia asks, worriedly. I chuckle, halfheartedly.

 

“The lady found my dad on the frozen pizza isle. He was running around in circles, pulling his hair out. He was going absolutely mental. I start calling to him, and to this day, I have never been hugged so tightly.” Sophia smiles, happy and relieved for my past reunion.

 

“My dad was so thankful for that woman, he paid for all her groceries. I thought that was nice, and she did, too. They talked the entire time out the store. And then, he invited her to dinner that night. And then, she came, with her own son, who was a few years younger than me. That woman ended up marrying my dad.” Sophia raises her eyebrows.

 

“That’s not a bad ending,” she says, confused on how mundane I’ve been retelling this tale. 

 

“My dad passed away later on, right before I was to start high school. My stepmother had been with my dad for years, had gone  on vacations with just the two of them. They spent more time together than with their children. Even my stepbrother was distant. He liked hanging with his friends more than with me.” Sophia is frowning again, and I don’t know if I should have said everything that I did, but decided I might as well give her a conclusion to this sudden story time. 

 

“I spent a lot of time by myself growing up, and got used to it. I focused a lot on how to improve myself, trying to figure out what was my ‘destiny’ and so on. I’m not sure what happened to everyone that was in my life before all this, but I know the chances of seeing them again are slim, if any at all. We were in different states, different places, when it really got bad. My family didn’t even call me. My fiancé had, and I heard how the end of our conversation went, too loud and too clear.” I fiddle with my bat for a bit. Seeing the dents in dings makes me feel a sense of pride.

 

“And now I’m going to make everything a little bit better. I’m going to do my duty, and take out as many of those walkers as I can. I know you think it’s crazy and far fetched, but it’s something I can do. It’s something I don’t need help on because I know how to do it well. I like getting credit for things I work hard for, even if it’s only me that knows I did what I did.” I look up at Sophia, and feel a bit queasy at her look.

 

She doesn’t look nervous, or disgusted. She looks forgiving.

 

“It’s okay,” she says, nodding once. “You’re doing what helps you survive.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There won't be an other OC's in this story. They're only mentioned briefly. The most I see writing a new OC in this story is by what Lila says to another character about her past. The Monroe family don't count as an OC, even though I am making up some pieces of their past.


	4. No

We’re by the pit Sophia fell in when I see it. 

 

A doll.

 

Sophia catapults from behind me as she goes to peer over the edge to get a closer look at her doll. She makes to move her leg over the tree roots.

 

I catch her arm, and subsequently stop her from falling down the ravine again. She’s gasping, shocked by how easily she could have toppled in.

 

“Don’t do that!” I shout, afraid of her falling and getting serious injuries from it. She already looks like she’s taken enough beatings today. Her temple has dried blood streaked to her right eye. Bruises, scratches, grazes, it’s the whole deal. I know I don’t look that good, either. My entire body is full of caked on walker blood and grime. The difference is how tiny Sophia is, every bruise or thump stands out more.

 

“You have to be careful. Terrains can hurt you, too, in case you forgot.” I sounded bitter, but I panicked. What would have happened had she fell down, knocked her head so bad, she busted her skull? How could I live with myself?

 

“Y-Yeah,” she gulps down, dizzy from the almost (possible) death experience.

 

“Let’s leave it,” I say, noting how the sky was looking slightly darker. We’d make it to the highway, if everything goes well. 

 

“But, that’s —“ She starts, and I let go of her arm. 

 

“It’s a doll, Sophia,” I slur, and I wonder where that comes from. Had this been before, I would have had more empathy. Now, I feel nothing. It’s a doll.

 

“A girl from before — when we  camped in the mountains — she gave it to me — she told me to look after it — she left with her family — I —“ Sophia is stuttering all over the place, distressed. I purse my lips together.

 

Sophia is helplessly looking down towards her doll below. If I told her “no” again, she would have to come with me. But if she went down there, she’d probably slip all over again.

 

I sigh.

 

“Okay,” I start, shrugging my backpack off. I knew what I could do to make the both of us content with how we were to travel on. “You stay right here, back against the tree, looking everywhere. Keep your knife out. I’ll be quick.” I’m already taking my rings out, tying them around the tree and my waist.

 

Sophia stumbles to press her back against the tree. I try not to sneak a peak back at her, knowing I would only see the tree trunk. I’ll be quick. I’ll be quick. I’ll be quick.

 

The rocks under my shoes are sharp and pointed. I wince at merely imagining what pain Sophia went through before she blacked out. Some of the rocks ripple downwards, splashing in the small puddles down at the bottom. I’m about to make it the flat drop when Sophia yelps.

 

I whip my head back, causing my neck to tingle and tense. I’m squinting up at where she was, only to see her backing away from the tree, closer to me. She’ll fall down.

 

“Sophia!” I yell up, and she turns briefly to me before turning forward again. She’s shaking her head back and forth, denying something.

 

I hear the growl. See the fragments of a ratted out shirt and decomposed hands.

 

“Sophia!” I yell again, but she doesn’t turn back. I start to try climb back up, but it’s tougher than going down. “Aim for the knees! Get it down to your level! Aim your knife right in the center of the head!” I’m shouting out instructions, only hoping she can still hear me.

 

She yelps again, running to her right. I grit my teeth, pulling and pulling at the chain, trying as hard as possible to get up to the top.

 

I hear a crunch, a yelp.

 

Oh, god.

 

I’m finally at the top, but I don’t see Sophia or the roamer. I’m trying hard to unclasp the chain around my waist, but my hands are shaking.

 

“Sophia!” I call, looking around me before looking back down. I repeat the process twice before the chain unclips. I’m running forward as soon as it does, gun in my hand and out of the holster.

 

I look around at the leaves on the ground, trying to see where a walker might have been from the shuffling of them. There were signs of someone running in a direction that’s neither the way we came, or the way we’re going.

 

I put my gun back in my holster, pull out my knife, and run in the general direction of where the tracks led.

 

It’s only been a few minutes, but my mind is racing. I lost Sophia again. We were back to square one. She was being chased by walkers with someone that was supposed to protect her running frantically behind. I grimace as the branches of a low tree hit my face, and my own thoughts. I was out of touch with other people. I didn’t know how to protect anyone but myself.

 

Flashes of a screaming family in a car passes through my head. Flashes of dead people surrounding it, trying to get in. Flashes of me trying to pick them off safely, but slowly, and too late. Brief but explicit images of a dead family in a car come through my mind, and I feel the dread and despair of my failure claw at my insides all over again. I couldn’t save them, even when they had helped me. They were dead, every one of them. Five people. Two parents. Three children. 

 

I couldn’t save them. I couldn’t do anything. I’m a horrible person. I could have stayed. I could have gave them weapons. I could have gave them tips. Why am I not the one dead?

 

I was so lost in the images, I don’t stop the tirade until I’m suddenly in an opening. It’s small, but open. I gasp for air, bending over and placing my on my knees. I was holding my breath the entire time.

 

There’s blood on the ground. There’s blood on the ground and I feel my stomach churn. Sophia.

 

But there isn’t just blood, when I raise my eyes more. There’s a deer. 

 

There’s a deer, not even eaten by the dead yet, and there’s blood away from it. I feel my mind shudder, not processing what evidence i’m seeing. 

 

I walk closer to the deer, and inspect the being. There’s a small hole, right in the torso, right between the ribs, to the heart. A hunter did this. Someone with experience. Is this the gunshot Sophia and I heard earlier?

 

Not wanting to exert energy in turning the body over, I walk further back where I was. There was a pool blood from the buck, but another pool of blood a little distance way. In all my work of forensics, the blood puddles came from two different bodies. But by the way they both laid flat, they both had fallen Why did the hunter only pick up one? The body hadn't been dragged, either. Could he only carry one?

 

The crunching of leaves breaks my thought process, and I run in the direction it came in. 

 

My breath gets caught in my throat when I see what made the noise.

 

Sophia is over a walker’s body, backing away from it, trembling, her hands out and wide, no knife in hand. She’s alive.

 

“Sophia?” I call softly, weary of surprising her.

 

She jumps anyways, turning to me. I can’t wipe away my concerned face when I see blood all over. She wasn’t bit… was she?

 

“Sophia,” I say again, not afraid of speaking louder, “w-were you… bit?” 

 

Sophia looks scared now. She opens her mouth, about to say something, when the walker by her feet rouses. She looks down, jumping back, and I run forward.

 

Sophia’s knife — my knife — is stuck in it’s head, but not that deeply. I look at the knife in my hand, and decide against it. I use my shoe to shove the admittedly duller knife through the walker’s head. It squelches, and squelches again as I work to take it out. It’s sticky.

 

I look back at Sophia, and see her panicked face starting to calm down. Her eyes are so wide, though. She's breathing through her nose now, her mouth in a tight line, but I can still see the pure terror behind her eyes.

 

Fuck.

 

“Sophia,” I say again. “Were you bit?” My voice cracks, and I realize how scared I am now. I had taken down walkers that were children, it was inevitable. But not a child that had been bitten and was still alive. I don’t think I could ever prepare for that. Not now. Not ever.

 

Sophia looks down at her left shoulder, and I feel an emptiness build in the center of my chest. 

 

No.

 

“No,” Sophia voices, and I feel like maybe it was my imagination. “No,” she nods her head, as if confirming it with herself. She withdraws the fabric of her blue t-shirt from her left shoulder, and I see nothing. She has a delirious smile on her face, shock getting the best of her. The walker must have gotten close to biting her there. Must have.

 

I feel the laugh build up, and even when I try to trample it down, it comes out anyways. Sophia’s wobbled smile goes away, and she looks worried. I place my knife back in its place, wipe my hands across my shirt, and rub at the sides of my face. I know I look like hell, and I just made it worse, but it’s okay. It’s okay.

 

Sophia doesn’t have time to react before my arms are around her, pushing her into my filthy shirt, so happy to know she’s okay. It takes a moment, but Sophia wraps her arms around my waist, and I feel myself become a little weightless. 

 

“Lila,” she says, vibrating against my right side more than any where else. That’s the first time she’s ever said my name. And it’s… it’s weird. “thank you.” 

 

I retract my arms from her, lightly resting them on her shoulders, pulling back to look at her. She stares at me, wholeheartedly. I feel my upper lip go up, perplexed.

 

“For what?” I ask, a little confused. “The knife? Man, I’m sharpening that as soon as possible. It could have been a lot sharper,” I extend, but feel a little embarrassed. I should have gave Sophia a sharper knife. A better one. She could have died because of me.

 

She almost did.

 

“No,” she shakes her head, relief causing her shoulders to slouch.”You told me how to take one out. I aimed for the knees. I did what you said.” A small smile tugs at her chapped lips.

 

I stare back at her. 

 

“I didn’t —” I start to say, but Sophia is hugging me again, pressing her left check into my side, and I can feel the smile on her face. I feel like I weigh lesser than I’ve ever felt before. Wrapping my arms around her again, I smile, too, not bothered in being interrupted this way. Sophia is okay.

 

I peek at the sky for a moment, and feel a frown replace the smile that was once there. It’s dark.

 

I look at my watch.

 

8:32pm.

 

“Sophia, it’s late.” She backs away, looking up at the dark sky and light clouds. 

 

“Will we make it to the highway in time?” She asks, knowing the answer already, but still holding hope.

 

“It’s hard to say,” I start, not wanting to put off on getting Sophia to her people as soon as possible. It’s dangerous for her out here. It’s especially dangerous for everyone in the dark, too. “But I don’t think we’re going to have a good time in the dark if we do.” Sophia looks disappointed, but it’s obvious why. I am, too.

 

“Where would we go?” She asks this time, and I feel myself fidget. I know what I’m used to, but she doesn’t.

 

“The trees,” I point up, and see her look up with me. She looks at me, then my backpack strap.

 

“‘Safer in high places,’ right?” She cites back, and I feel so satisfied suddenly. She remembered.

 

“You’ve been takin’ notes?” I ask, good-natured.

 

“No, just paying attention. I didn’t need to take a lot of notes in school, either.” She’s just being honest, but I feel myself chuckle. 

 

“Lucky,” I say, already starting to pull out the needed supplies to get up the tree. “All I ever did was take notes, re-read them a hundred times, and played nice with the other kids.” Sophia and I climbed up the tree, Sophia going first. I looked around the bottom of the trunk, and kept my arms up, supporting Sophia as much as possible.

 

“Did you have any friends that asked to see them?” Sophia asks, grunting as she makes it up higher.

 

“Yeah, sometimes,” I say, recalling back to those days. “Never really had a true friend, though. Everyone was too busy with each other to really make bonds. Sounds odd, but a lot of the people I had in my classes only worked together for the class. This was college, so I never held it against them or anything. I was like them, too.”

 

Sophia is on a sturdy branch, and I start to make my way up, too.

 

“That sounds lonely,” she says, swinging her legs back and forth on the branch above. I only see the movement, but not her actual self.

 

“It wasn’t always, just sometimes,” I’m halfway up to where Sophia is now. “If it wasn’t for not having any close friends, I wouldn’t have found my fiancé at the time.”

 

Sophia perks up, from the way she’s peering harder over to look at me.

 

“You had a fiancé?” She asks, and I feel a sad smile overcome my features.

Had.

 

“Yeah,” I grunt, pulling myself over the thick branch, close to Sophia’s, if not a little higher. “See.”

 

I wiggle my ring finger, extending my arm out to Sophia. I could almost touch her from here. Sophia squints, trying to make out what the engagement ring looks like. It reflects a peek of light from between the leafs, and I feel myself fall in love with the ring even more. He really did go all out.

 

“What was their name?” I smile, thinking of him. Thinking of what we had. Thinking of who we were.

 

“Spencer,” I speak, pulling my hand closer to me, looking down at the shimmering ring. “He’s gone now, but I won’t forget him. I won’t.” I use my hand with his ring still on it to pull out a blanket, handing it to Sophia. The chains to wrap around her with it.

 

“Thank you,” she says, politely. I wonder what caused her to warm up to me. Was it really the advice? Or was it from being so scared, and so alone? Sophia was still a child, she still depended on other people. She was with me to survive. I was with her to save a life. All I ever did any

 

“Lila?” She speaks up, rousing me from my thoughts. It feels weird hearing my name. I wasn’t used to it. It felt like it wasn’t mine. Felt like I wasn’t that person anymore.

 

“Yeah, Sophia?”

 

She’s quiet for a moment. “Are you going to add that walker to your journal?”

 

I raise a brow, quirking my lips a little. “Nah, I don’t think I will.”

 

Sophia murmurs, and I look at her. “It wasn’t mine. That was yours. All I did was give it a nudge.”

 

Sophia hums. 

 

“You good?” I ask, just doing it for the sake of doing it. She says she is. I don’t know if I really believe that. “You sure?”

 

“Yeah, I’m sure.” And she’s smiling, nodding, reassuring me.

 

“Alright, goodnight.”

 

“Goodnight.”

 

* * *

 

I’m woken up this time from the sounds of birds chirping. I look at my watch, lazily. There were worse ways of waking up. I stare at the time for a bit, processing how late it was. 12:20pm. I finally put down my wrist, rubbing my temples, sighing. Trees weren’t comfortable, but they were safe. 

 

Taking a peek over my shoulder, I see Sophia is still sleeping, and feel a tug at my chest. She looked rough. 

 

I heaved myself up from my slouched position, hearing my joints realign as I did. I let out a relaxing breath, bending my arms and torso around as much as possible. A new day. I hear Sophia start to wake up, possibly from me clanking the rings together as I started to unclasp them, and I smile a little.

 

Another day for the count.

 

We’re heading back where we came from, and Sophia and I pick up a conversation over a can of peaches. It starts with her asking me if I’ve ever been to the Grand Canyon. I had never been, but Spencer and his family had gone a lot, never getting tired of seeing it, from how he explained. She tells me how she might be going with her mom and the Grimes family. She tells me about them, but mostly about Carl. And then she’s describing everyone in her group to me. She tells me how she calls everyone by their first names, except for Mr. Grimes and Mrs. Grimes. They’re the only people who she doesn’t feel comfortable calling them anything else. They're like her friend's parents from school; you just don't call them by their first name. She tells me about T-Dogg, Dale, Andrea, Glenn, Shane, and Daryl. 

 

The person she talks about the most is her mom. She asks about mine, and I tell her about my family. I tell her about how we weren’t close, but that it wasn't their fault as much as it had been mine. She asks about Spencer’s family, and I tell her about the last time I heard anything from them. She gets quiet afterwards, and changes the topic fast. Then, we’re talking about our favorites of things.

 

Sophia’s favorite color is blue. Mine is maroon. (“That’s really specific, Lila,” she says.) Sophia’s favorite food is any and all fruit snacks. Mine is pineapple. (“That’s really specific, Sophia,” I say. She rolls her eyes.) Sophia’s favorite number is ten. When she turned that age, her mom and her spent the entire day together, just the two of them. Her mom drove her Cherokee around town, stopping at the zoo, an ice cream parlor, a water park, the whole nine yards. Her dad didn’t come home at all that day, and I felt uncertain on my feelings towards the man. Sophia didn’t talk a lot about him. When she did, she breezed through.

 

I told her my favorite number was eight. It’s the amount of letters in “I love you,” which is something I would say everyday to Spencer. Sophia aww’d, and I felt happy that she could still say such a sound in this type of world. I wanted Sophia to stay a kid for as long as possible. 

 

We continued on, not doing much with ourselves besides walking and talking. We kept alert, and once I was done sharpening the knife I had previously given Sophia, I handed it back. She took it, gratefully. 

 

It’s dark by the time we make it to the highway, and I feel a little jittery. We came across no walkers, which was a good thing, in actuality. But I needed to get a count in sometime. There had been DAYS where I never encountered any, but it only led me to be more impatient, more restless, and more prone to careless mistakes.  I didn’t want to be that way right now. Sophia was with me. Yesterday, she took down her first walker. I didn’t want her to have to take down any because I couldn’t handle myself.

 

I don’t see any people, and neither does Sophia. She’s walking fast and weaving through the cars once we hop over the metal sides. She calls out for her mom. She calls out for Mr. Grimes, and Carl, and Dale. I feel uneasiness coil in my stomach, cold and wired. I hope for the best.

 

Then I see it. 

 

On an older yellow vehicle, neatly written white text filled the windshield's glass. “SOPHIA STAY HERE WE WILL COME EVERY DAY” was written across it. On the yellow hood, there was bottles of water, peanut butter, gatorade, and cans of chilli.

 

“Look,” I point to the windshield, and Sophia stops in her tracks. She reads the words multiple times, eyes scanning back and forth, and I feel like she’s going to get angry. Angry at me for not getting us here faster, angry at her group for not staying another day. But she doesn’t.

 

She lets out a relieved huff of a laugh, starts rubbing at her eyes, and then she’s crying in my shirt, holding tightly. I’m patting her head, and feel a little dizzy from it all. 

 

“Well, looks like we got a place to stay,” I say, looking around at all the empty vehicles. Sophia wipes at her face, but her sobs don’t quiet. She looks fragile. I rub my hands through hair, soothingly. She nods her head, crossing her arms over her chest, comforting herself in the gesture.

 

“Do you remember anything in this area that could help us out? Any hotspots, I mean?” I withdraw my knife, peeking into the dusty windows of the cars. Sophia walks behind me, looking behind us the entire time. I keep walking around before I see a navy blue Jeep. It’s pretty elevated off of the ground. It even has a spare tire still on the back. I look inside, and see suitcases still in the backseat. There’s no one inside.

 

“No,” Sophia speaks up, “I stayed by Carl. We were just looking inside of some cars, but everything was covered in blood,” I frown, pulling a suitcase out of the back of the Jeep. I open it up, and see men’s clothing in it. I pull out the other, and see more men’s clothing, but also some hygiene products. I look over it all, and decide this will do. I push them back in the Jeep, but in the trunk’s department this time. I hop in, and Sophia follows, I close the door behind her, and lock all the doors. 

 

The seats are comfy.

 

We both take in a breath, and release it at the same time. We look at each other, and I smile, relieved to have gotten Sophia to a place she’ll be okay. In the morning, or afternoon, depending on when they come, she’ll be back with her group.

 

I give her a once over, and see how gross she looks. She catches me make a face, and she giggles. “You’re not that good, either.” I chuckle.

 

“Wanna try some of these clothes?” I question, pulling back out one of the suitcases. There’s an array of simple colored t-shirts, long sleeves, and some flannels. Sophia looks at them, but doesn’t find any better than the other. I pull out of the shirts and see that it’s incredibly large. XX-L.

 

I look back at Sophia. She stares back.

 

“Maybe not,” I say, watching as she smiles weakly at me, nodding.

 

“Well, maybe there’s something here,” I say, pulling the other suitcase out. I placed the first one in the passenger seat. They’re both heavy.

 

Sophia does the honors of unclasping the case, rummaging through. Inside, there’s boxer briefs, which she revolts from. I chuckle, and take over moving around in. There’s deodorant, shower products, and hair gel.

 

Hair gel.

 

I look at it blankly before looking at Sophia. She looks amused.

 

“Well, it looked promising at first.” I sigh, closing it, and throwing the hefty plastic in the trunk area. I pull the other back from the seat, and get the only jacket out. I hand it over to Sophia, and get a maroon colored long sleeve from the case, as well. I place it with the other case.

 

“Use it as a pillow,” I say, shrugging my jacket off. My backpack is in the floorboard by my feet. Sophia starts to roll up the leather jacket into a rectangular lump. I make to take off my dirtied top when I see that Sophia is facing stiffly out the window. 

 

“You okay?” I inquire, thinking she saw something. She lets out a small and weak, “yeah.”

 

I look back down at my arms, which are pulling my shirt halfway up.

 

“Oh,” I say, looking back at Sophia and seeing her ears are pink. I chuckle at her embarrassment.

 

“It’s okay, Sophia,” I say, taking the disgusting shirt off. I’m in a torn up white (beige, now) bra, and continue. “We’re both girls. Besides, there’s nothing much to see.” I meant in a “nothing new” kind of way, but Sophia takes it another way.

 

“No, there’s a lot I don’t want to see,” she says, choked. I laugh aloud, pulling the large tee over my head. It’s more long than anything, so I use my knife from my thigh to cut it. Don’t want it snagging on anything, or letting it be easier for walkers to get at me. 

 

“I guess you could say that,” I say, cutting the tee to my jeans’ belt buckles. I knew I wasn’t flat as a board, but I wasn’t uncomfortably gifted in the chest. The unfitting bra probably made it look like there was more than what was actually there. 

 

I look back at Sophia, who is still looking intensely out the dirty window. 

 

“Got the jacket rolled yet?” I’m riffling through my backpack, getting the blanket out again. It’s a compact backseat, so we could easily share the frazzled threads if we were close together. Sophia nods.

 

“Alright, c’mon,” I pat at my thigh, and she looks me in the eye. I raise an eyebrow. 

 

“Hey, I’ve been letting you have that blanket to yourself this entire time, the least we can do is share it for once.” I grin, resting my left arm on the plastic of the door to my left. Sophia purses her lips, but places the leather lump on my lap anyways. She wiggles into the seat, laying down, knees bent to fit more securely in the seat. I throw the blanket over her body.

 

It’s quiet before she says, “The blanket’s not even on you.”

 

“I know, but it’s okay.” 

 

Sophia doesn’t say anything, just nestles deeper into the jacket. She wiggles around before she grabs the jacket and throws it into the trunk’s bed. I look down at her, but only see her dirty hair.

 

“It was uncomfortable,” she states. I give a nod she can’t see.

 

“Fair enough.”

 

It’s quiet again.

 

“Lila?” 

 

“Yeah?” Sophia turns her body, letting her head lay flat against my legs, her eyes looking straight up at me.

 

“When do you think they’ll come tomorrow?” Her eyes are still rimmed red from her crying earlier.

 

“I don’t know,” I say. “But I’ll be on watch.”

 

Sophia gives me a confused look. “You haven’t stayed up these past nights, though.” 

 

I lean further into the seat, letting my head fall on the back of the headrest. It’s the most comfortable thing I’ve slept on in weeks. “Yeah, but we had an advantage those times. Staying so up high. It protects you from the things below.”

 

“And other people?” She asks, and I hesitate. 

 

“No, it’s hard to stay protected from other people. They’re tricky, some of them. Unless they prove it, they’re not really looking out for you. They’ll throw you as bait the quickest chance they get.” I shiver, thinking of an incident before. A man. A gun. A roamer. The gun wasn’t aimed at the roamer, but at me. He wanted me to distract it from getting to him. All for some cans of food at a convenience store. Wrong place at the wrong time.

 

“I know, that’s why I was confused about you.” I look down at Sophia. “I thought you were going to take me to other people. I thought you were going to use me against my group. I thought I was going to die.” She’s frowning heavily. My hands weave through her matted hair, and I try my best to detangle it. It’s not helpful, but it’s soothing, from the way her eyes flutter closed.

 

“I’m glad you took a chance with me, Sophia. I’m glad I could help.” Sophia nods, basking in the attention to her scalp. A single tear rolls down her cheek. I wonder what she’s thinking about as she drifts to sleep.

 

I spend the entire night in darkness.

 

 

My watch reads 6:00am when I finally decide to shake Sophia awake. I hand her a can of chilli and the gatorade from what her group left for her. Sophia gobbles it down, asking if I was going to eat, too. I shake my peanut butter jar at her.

 

She’s sitting on a light green Nissan’s hood, eating, as I rifle through the cars. I find a lot of clothes, mostly. I go back to the navy blue Jeep we slept in last night, looking in the drivers side for keys. I don’t find any. I check under the car, but there’s nothing. I go to the fuel door, and around the inside. 

 

“A-ha!” I exclaim, triumphant. Sophia glances my way. I hold up the keys, shaking them. “I used to put my keys here, too, just in case I left them inside and couldn’t get in. Then again, my gas tank also had a passcode for it, too.” Sophia nods at me, mouthful of food.

 

I spend time on the car, checking the oil, checking the gas. I replace the battery with a spare from the trunk, just in case. I empty out the previous owner’s belongings, and start to pack my own findings in the trunk. I had found some new clothing, ones that would fit me. I got more clothes for the colder seasons, as I really didn’t have any beyond my jacket. I even found some blankets. No food, or water, but it was okay. Sophia gave me her other jar of peanut butter. 

 

It’s 12:32pm when I check my watch, confused on why no one has come yet. Maybe they would come soon? 

 

Sophia keeps asking me about the time, and I tell her honestly each time. (“No, I did not make up that it had only been 2 minutes since you last asked, Sophia, goodness.”)

 

Sophia and I are trailing around the cars, merely weaving through. I don’t know why, but I decide that we should play a game to pass the time. Sophia tells me she’ll play anything but hide-and-seek. I nod, knowing that would be a dumb game in a time like this.

 

“Tag?” I offer, shrugging. Sophia shrugs back. “Sure.”

 

Sophia’s declares me “it” and I make no protests. I just didn’t think she’d catch me so fast.

 

“You sure are fast,” I say, leaning against a red mustang. Sophia gives a small smile. “Alright, now catch me,” she says.

 

“I’ve had enough practice in that, I think,” I say, making our situations in the past far less terrifying and dreadful than what they really were. Sophia grimaces. “Sorry,” I apologize, meaning it.

 

“It’s okay,” she forces a smile. “it’s in the past now.” She was more mature than I had given her credit for. 

 

I begin to chase after her, running past the yellow vehicle her message was left on. My backpack is on my back, my bat still nestled in between the zippers. I’ve been traveling with it so much, it doesn’t bother me that the handle of the bat can sometimes tug on my dark and tangled hair. I see Sophia turn around to look at me, a small smile on her lips, about to taunt me.

 

Her face drops, her eyes open wide as saucers. What?

 

“No, don’t!” She shouts, and I stop in my tracks. What?

 

I feel a tug on my braid, but it’s not my bat, and I hear Sophia say “Stop!” before I feel the impact of an object colliding into my skull.


	5. Found

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know a lot of people don’t read chapter titles, but every chapter in this story has a double meaning title. 
> 
> The title of this chapter was intended to be for chapter 3, but I expanded more on Sophia/Lila’s relationship. I figured it would take time for all of the major characters to warm up to a stranger, even if that stranger saved a little girl for them. Some OC’s that I have read involve them being becoming immediate best friends with every single main character, as if they've known each other since the beginning, or in some cases, somehow knew major characters from before the outbreak. 
> 
> Besides that, I tried to make Lila socially inept after being alone so long. I think that would make for some interesting character development, especially with Daryl.

My head was pounding. I felt nauseous, like I just got off a rollercoaster that lasted for twenty straight minutes.

 

“She helped me!” I hear, somewhere around me, muffled. None of my sensory inputs were working at their fullest.

 

“Sophia, she was chasing you!” I hear a woman say, sounding angry and accusing. My ears started to unplug from whatever stopped them before. They knew Sophia?

 

“She’s right,” I hear another woman say, softer, more weary.

 

“Mom, Lila saved me!” Sophia was shouting. “She found me, and led me back here! She helped me defend myself! See!” I hear a gasp before a man buts in, “Gimme that!” He says, and I start to realize that I’m laying face down on pavement, my right cheek feeling warm. I was just laying in the street? Mom? Was this Sophia’s group? It had to be. 

 

“C’mon, we’re leaving.” I hear the man say, low and intimidating. What the fuck?

 

“She saved me! You can’t just leave her here, she’s not even awake yet!” I turn my head, trying to get my cheek from burning on the hot pavement. My arms were shaking as I tried to right myself up.

 

“Well, now she is,” I hear the man say between his teeth. His footsteps pound towards me, but my eyes go in and out of blurs. His boots get in my line of vision, starting to become clearer. I see him lift a boot up, right over my head. I hear Sophia yell my name.

 

Fuck that.

 

I roll out the way, pushing my arms out. I roll to my left, using the momentum to get to my feet. My vision becomes grey from getting up so fast, but I pull out both my guns, aiming at the man. 

 

I see a blonde woman reach to her waist, and I aim my second gun at her. 

 

“Wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I say, squinting from the sun in my eyes. My hair is halfway in my face, but I can see everything I need to.

 

Sophia is far to my left, clutched in the arms of a short haired woman with salt and pepper hair. The man in front of my gun is bald, with a broken nose, and a hat with “POLICE” written across it. He’s glowering at me. He’s in military pants, and he looks like he might have had the training. The blonde woman my other gun is aimed at is tan, with a deep scowl on her face. Her hand is twitching for her gun. I’ll shoot her in the throat f she reaches for it. If the man reaches, I’ll shoot him in the groin. Gotta get the count someway.

 

“Lila,” Sophia says, the woman tightening her grip on her daughter.

 

“Sophia,” I say back, looking between the two people that were going to leave me out in the open, unconscious and defenseless.

 

“This is my group,” she says, worriedly. “This is my mom.” I look over at her, and she nods towards the scared woman. “That’s Shane, and that’s Andrea. Remember me telling you about them?” I nod, looking between the two. “Lila, they came for me.” She sounds so relieved, and scared.

 

I lower my guns. 

 

“Don’t,” I say, seeing the woman jolt towards her gun. I raise mine back at her instantly. She lowers her hands back down, palms splayed wide. 

 

“Lila,” the man says, using my name as some crisis negotiation tactic. I’ve seen it only done once, up close and personal. A team of forensics went to a crime scene, and there were blood splatters everywhere, so they called me out, too. We were all in this apartment when a man came out from some bedroom closet, holding a woman at gunpoint, threatening to kill her if we didn’t leave the vicinity. We did, and were stationed outside as a police officer went to talk the man down.

 

I knew how these things worked. “Lila, is it?” He says, again, after I don’t reply. 

 

“Shane, is it?” I mock, turning my head to him. I lower my gun down from the woman. She keeps her palms out in front of her, mimicking Shane.

 

“What do you want?” He says, and I feel a little offended. These people just knocked me unconscious, intended to leave me in the middle of a street, and then make off like I was just trash in the wind. 

 

“Nothing,” I start. “I don’t want anything from you people. I was trying to do a good deed, save a little girl in peril. You people are the ones who tried to leave me unconscious in the middle of a street. All I was going to do was hand her off to you, then drive off with one of these cars, off on my merry way.” I honestly don’t know why we’re even in this situation, but I don’t say that.

 

“Then how ‘bout you back away from us and we can leave each other alone, ain’t nobody gotta get hurt,” he says, and I want to scoff. _I_ was going to get hurt, had I not woken up or dodged his dirty boot.

 

“She should come back with us,” Sophia says, almost to herself. Her mother looks at her, expression unreadable.

 

“Sophia, honey, there’s not enough supplies.“ Andrea says, coming out of nowhere, and Shane joins on.

 

“She’s right, Sophia, there’s no room for her where we are.” Shane hands lower, and I raise mine at him again. He raises his hands back up, and I lower my gun back. He shakes his head at me, his lip curled.

 

“But you said there’s land there, that it’s an entire farm,” Sophia proclaims, looking at her mother. I see everyone tense up. I feel my face contort in confusion. I look over at Sophia.

 

“I really don’t want—“ I start to say, but see movement to my right. I turn my head, but Shane already has me on the ground. Both my wrists are locked in vice grips, and my guns clatter to the ground. Andrea kicks them away from me.

 

“I don’t want —“ I can’t even get my point out. I don’t want to go anywhere with them. Shane picks my head up again, slamming it to the cement. I hear Sophia and her mother tell him to stop.

 

I black out.

 

* * *

 

When I wake up this time, I’m not lying face down on hot pavement. I’m lying on a soft mattress, with sheets that smell like dried sunflowers. They’re soft and slightly coarse, like a hospital blanket. I feel like I’m back in Deanna’s house, in her living room, sleeping on the sectional sofa with my head in Spencer’s lap. Tears prickle my eyes as I open them, taking in my surroundings, and realizing I’m not really there.

 

I’m in a light pink bedroom with floral wallpaper around the trim. There’s a dresser with jewelry box and antiseptic bottles on the top. Two open windows frame the dresser, both open and inviting, the curtains swaying gently. There’s a door to the left, open, leading to a bathroom. There’s a door to the right, closed, more than likely leading through the house. My head is pounding, and I feel bandages around it. I touch it, surprised it doesn’t hurt as much as I thought it would.

 

I slowly sit up in the bed, the blankets pooling around my waist. One of the blankets is from my backpack, but a lot cleaner and smelling even better than I’ve ever smelled. Everything is so clean. I feel like I’m ruining everything with my still dirty form.

 

The door creaks open, and I instinctively reach for my gun, but it’s not there. Nothing is. All my weapons are gone. I push the blanket further up to my chest, ready to throw it over the person and make a run for it, when I see it’s another woman. The one with short, pixie hair. Sophia’s mom.

 

“Hi,” she greets, looking a little nervous. I stare at her, peeking behind her at what’s beyond the door. A hallway with more doors. Also impeccably clean.

 

“I’m Sophia’s mom,” she says, nodding as she closes the door. I look at her, and nod. She sits in a chair in the corner by the window, looking out of it and at something down below.

 

“I remember,” I say. She smiles, turning back to me, tight-lipped. 

 

“I have a lot to say, but I don’t think I’d ever have enough time to say it all,” she chuckles, wiping at her eyes. She looks like she’s been crying. She looks like she had when I met her at the highway, and I wouldn’t hold it against her. She was reunited with her daughter. I knew Sophia had cried, too, from those tear tracks.

 

“You’re a guardian angel,” she rushes, taking in a deep breath. She looks like she’s about to start crying again. I feel my heart tug at the edges. Sophia took after her mom a lot. “If you hadn’t found her so soon, I don’t know what could have happened, I don’t ever want to know, but all I can even do for you is say thank you, _thank you_ , thank you so much.” she sniffles, rubbing at her forehead, smiling in nothing but pure bliss.

 

“Anyone would have done what I did,” I say. I wasn’t a guardian angel. I was just doing what anyone else in my position would have done.

 

“No, they would’t,” she says, a slight edge in her tone. I wasn’t prepared for that. I look at her, and take her word for it. Not anyone, but somebody would have done what I did. Somebody.

 

There’s a knock on the door.

 

“I gotta get going,” she says, standing up, furiously wiping at her eyes. “Dinner and stuff, Sophia’s down there, too,” she says, nodding, and I smile softly back at her. She was still in some type of shock from having her daughter brought back to her. As she opens the door and steps out, she nods at another woman outside of it. I realize I didn’t even know Sophia’s mom’s  real name.

 

The new woman has short, brown hair, a cowboy hat in her left hand, and dressed like a true westerner. I look her up and down as she smiles at me, warmly. She’s pretty.

 

“Hey,” she says, closing the door back as she walks in. She has a ziplock bag under her left arm. “How are you doing?” She asks.

 

I look at her, confused. Who was this? She wasn’t one of the people from the highway. She didn’t even fit the descriptions of anyone in Sophia’s group. The woman chuckles. 

 

“I’m Maggie.” She extends her hand out, and take it, awkwardly. “‘Heard you found the little girl everyone’s been looking for. She’s been up and arms about you all day, telling everyone that you helped her. Even her momma’s been defending you. Only people who don’t want to accept it are the two who dragged you back here. You got everyone curious now.” She explains, unzipping the bag and taking off my bandages. I don’t know what to say in reply, so I state the obvious.

 

“I’m Lila,” I say, staying still. Out of all the possibilities from getting knocked unconscious by a guy with a “POLICE” hat, this was not it.

 

“I know,” she says, politely enough. “Your weapons are with Rick’s people, if you’re wondering. Daddy doesn’t take kindly to everyone flaunting weapons around, so they stay out of the way. Your backpack is there, too.”

 

I nod, feeling a little unnerved in being so defenseless. Maggie must pick up on that, so she begins to tell me about who she is, and the situation right know. Her father owns this farm we’re currently on, and she lives in this house with her family. They haven’t left since everything hit the fan. She tells me about how her father is the one who wrapped my head, and he’s been taking care of Sophia’s group since they showed up with a shot little boy in their arms. Carl, Sophia’s friend that’s her age. Rick, the leader of the group, has been having search parties go out and look for Sophia. Currently, everyone’s back but someone who took their horse without anyone’s permission. There was a man here, the one who accidentally shot Carl when shooting a buck. But he’s not here anymore, giving his life to save Carl’s on a run for medicine with Shane. She gets quiet afterwards, and I feel awkward again. This is a lot to take in.

  
Maggie smiles, forced. “I know, but it’s best to hear it now.” I must have said that out loud.

 

“I’m sorry,” I blurt, not knowing why. From the looks of it, neither does Maggie. “For having you take care of me,” I continue, going with it. “I didn’t want to come with them. I was just going to give them their girl back. I was going to take one of the cars on the highway, and go back on my own. You see, I really have no need to stay.” It’s true, and I feel better in finally letting out my intentions. Shane and Andrea chose not to hear me the first time on the highway, and didn’t even try to listen the second. 

 

Maggie nods, understandingly. “My daddy will probably be relieved,” she says, and she frowns. “If only the others thought that way, would make this whole mess a lot easier.” I cringe, feeling animosity coming from the woman. Seems like there’s negative feelings between her family and Sophia’s group. I choose to not say anything else.

 

“You wanna get cleaned up?” She says, a higher pitch to her voice, more chipper. I furrow my eyebrows. Is there a dam nearby? Does she have wet wipes for me? “In the bath,” she states.

 

I sit up straighter, swallowing. “Bath?” I say, voice cracking a bit. 

 

Maggie grins, a peek of teeth behind her full lips. “Yes, the bath.” She repeats, and I feel my heart swoon.

  
“Yes, ma’m.”

 

“I’ll get you some clean clothes,” she starts to leave, but I ask her to wait. She turns back, raising an eyebrow.

 

“Uhm, I don’t have any clean… uhm..” I trail, feeling like I’m asking for too much. She hums, already knowing.

 

“We did a run yesterday. I snagged some undergarments while we were there. They’re clean.” She smiles, softly, kindly, and walks out, closing the door behind her.

 

I lay back down on the bed, taking a deep breath in, holding it, and then releasing it.

 

What kind of place was this? Where was Sophia? Maggie was really nice. And Hershel, too, given he wrapped my head even though he didn’t know me. He was a doctor? I should have went into a different field. Would be helpful in a time like this. I suppose my occupation wasn’t that bad of a choice; I knew where the most impactful places of the body was, leading to the most blood coming out. The head was almost always the most prominent. After every autopsy report, the cases where the most blood splatter came from, practically always had it where the head took the most damage. 

 

And now, where the dead walk and the living have to find ways to kill them before they, themselves, get killed? The head was the only way to stop the walkers. There was blood all over this Earth now — arterial sprays, expirated and gunshot spatter, cast-offs — there was all types of patterns on this planet. What use were my skills? Anyone could tell when blood was fresh or old. Maybe not as expertly as me, but I didn’t have any life-saving skills.

 

Maggie interrupts my thought process, opening the door, her green tank top swaying. She has a pile of folded clothes in her hands, and she’s smiling gently at me.

 

“Here ya go,” she says, waiting patiently as I trample through the blankets and stand up from the bed. She’s a few inches taller than me, but I blame it on her cowboy boots. 

 

“Thank you so much,” I try to pass off my gratitude in so little words, and feel like it’s not enough. She smiles anyways, backing out towards the door a few steps behind her. 

 

“Rick’s group is making dinner tonight. Come and join us as soon as you’re done.” She says, closing the door behind her. Well, wonder what else works in this house? Do they have an oven, a microwave, refrigerator? 

 

I go into the white tiled bathroom, the floral pattern keeping it’s theme in here, as well. I see a mirror on top of the sink, and jump at the reflection.

 

Was that me?

 

I use my dirty hands to touch my equally gross face. There was so much grime and filth everywhere on my skin, I looked like I had rolled in a pit of mud and dried out in the sun, caking it on. The whites of my eyes were brought out heavily, and I never saw my green eyes look so strange on my face. They didn’t fit, almost. I bared my teeth at my reflection, checking to see if they were dirty, too. I had taken some mouthwash from a market a few weeks back. I used it clean off my hands, but also rinse my mouth out. I didn’t want a rotten tooth to bother me as I was out killing the undead. A force of habit, I guess, to rinse.

 

There was a bar of soap, shampoo, and conditioner on the side of the bathtub. I looked at the pile of clothes Maggie had handed me and saw she left a razor, deodorant, a brush, and more bandages to wrap my head. I stared at the razor. It was like the hair gel I had saw in the Jeep with Sophia. An out of place object in this new world. The deodorant, too, but I could see why someone would grab that on a supply run if they had the space to spare it. Maggie’s family had _running water_. They could shave if they wanted to. I was just used to the road, of the uncertainty of surviving the night. 

 

I felt a little bitter as I brushed through the tangled mess of my hair. After a painful fit, I saw that it had gotten longer than what it was before. My once straight bangs were now framing a little past my heart shaped face, layering downwards to the middle of my back. It didn’t look the same color it was, either. My hair used to be a dark, almost black, kind of brown. Now, it looked red from the caked on blood and dried dirt in it. I looked like a stranger to myself. I looked like roamer. Was I?

 

The bitterness receded as I felt the hot water beat against my back in the shower, relaxing me. I let the water flow all around me, watching as dirt and blood and grime slid down my bare legs and feet, pooling into the drain. It felt surreal. I used the bar of soap to scrub all over myself, then used the shampoo, taking care in threading through my now untangled locks. The water turned a sickly brown as I squeezed the soap and water out. All that gunk was in my hair? I wouldn’t have doubted it, but to see it…

 

In a bout of inner conflict, I decided to just shave. I was given the opportunity, so why not take it? I would never get the chance again, so why not? It was as I swiped the blades against my skin that I felt a little dizzy. I felt like I wasn’t really here, like the past couple months didn’t happen. I was in a hotel, on a trip with Spencer in some foreign country, enjoying life together.

 

The thought of this even being a dream leaves me as I wipe the fog from the mirror I looked in earlier. I wasn’t me. I still looked like someone else. My skin was darker from being out in the sun all those months, a little splash of freckles in the middle of my face, over my nose. I almost laughed when I realized my cheekbones were more prominent than any contouring I had ever tried out in the past. My eyes looked huge. My hair wasn’t auburn anymore, but the dampness caused it look like it’s original color. I used the hair dryer on the side of the sink to dry my hair, and saw the difference as it dried in waves. It looked like a brown balayage, from all the sun exposure. I wrap my head back up, and it looks like I’m wearing a headband. I look silly, but my heads still feels a little tender in the back.

 

I dressed in the clothes Maggie gave me. A fitted beige tank top, black undergarments, and dark blue jeans. They were too fit, clinging to my legs, but not uncomfortably. They seemed like they were made for someone younger, though, as the brand had a girly styled logo. I felt like a new person. I clasped my watch back on, a small comfort. I had a tan line from the watch, something I had thought was just dirt before.

 

When I walked out the bathroom, the breeze from the window was replaced with stillness. When I looked outside, I saw the sun was starting to set, but light rays still beamed. It was 6:02pm. I turned towards the door, ready to go downstairs, when I saw my boots by the dresser next to it. They were cleaned, and new, black tube socks hung out of them. I felt a small smile blossom on my face. This place was a paradise.

 

I tugged my boots on, feeling comfort in the snugness. I still had these two constants, and that made me feel better. Now, I needed my weapons and bag. Then I could go. Maybe after dinner, these people would give them back?

Why’d they even bring me back here?

 

As I walk down the hallway, I see a door slightly ajar. I peek through the crack, curious and nosey. I can’t tell if I know about these people than they know about me. I don’t know what Sophia has said. I don’t know anyone that actually lived on this farm, either, but that’s because Sophia had no idea her people found them.

 

As I peek through, I see a small, pale form under some blankets, breathing deeply. Was that Carl?

 

“Mom?” a soft voice calls, and I feel myself jump. I thought he was asleep, from how heavily he was breathing. “Mom?” he calls again. I open the door, stepping further in and looking at the young boy. He stares at me, eyes a little wide.

 

“Uhm, hi, I’m —“ I don’t get to finish, but Carl does.

 

“Lila,” he says, smiling. My mouth drops a little, not expecting him to know my name. “You’re the lady that saved Sophia.” He looks pale and tired, but the smile on his face causes his eyes to light up. He looks like a nice kid. 

 

“Yup.” I pop the ‘p’, trying to figure out what else to say, just fiddling with the door handle.

 

“Sophia told me all about what happened. She says you’re a good person, just a little weird in the head. Stuff about how you count how many walkers you’ve killed. That’s so cool.” The boy gushes, and I feel my face heat up. This kid thought I was cool? 

 

“Sophia even said she almost killed a walker. She kicked it at the knees like you told her to do, and then she pushed the knife you gave her in its head, and it fell down, but it started to move again because the knife didn’t go all the way through, and you came in and pushed it deeper, making it really die. I can’t wait to get out of this bed and go out, looking at the entire farm. Everyone says it’s nice. Hey, will you teach me how to kill walkers when I get up?” Carl rambles, and I feel myself fidget. I had never been around a kid that found my only hobby “cool.” 

 

“Maybe,” I shrug, not knowing the answer. He looks dejected, his body slouching further in the bed, so I swoop back in, “if your parents are okay with it and stuff.” Carl inflates all over again. 

 

“They’ll have to be. Sophia’s here because of you.” Carl smiles at me, adoringly. I feel myself blush again. 

 

“Take it easy, kid,” I say, smiling back. He’s a good kid, too excited for his own good.

 

I’m walking down the stairs when I see Maggie moving chairs into the dining room. She sees me, and smiles, motioning for me to come down more. I go, but see a chair in the other room at the end of the stairs that she’s moving them all from. I go over and pick up one, going back to her. She helps me position it right, saying thanks.

 

“Uhm..” I say, and she looks at me expectantly. “Who do I…?” I trail off.

 

“Oh!” She smiles, “Well, daddy is still out back, but —“ She’s interrupted by a voice in the kitchen.

 

“Lila!” Sophia calls, waving at me. I look over at her. She’s on a stool by an island, cutting potatoes, and covered in little wrappings of bandages. She looks almost worse than Carl, if not for the color in her face. She looks happy and young, the shower doing her well. Everyone around her stops their bustling chatter to look in my direction. There’s an older blonde woman, much softer looking around the edges than Andrea, and a blonde teenage girl, too. Daughter, maybe? Across the island from them is Sophia’s mom, who I still don’t know the official name of. Beside her mom is a woman with long brown hair, a little shorter than mine. Lori, possibly? 

 

I wave back, stiffly. “Hi, Sophia.”

 

“Lila, are you going to help us?” She smiles, and her mom touches her arm, mumbling something about an inside voice to deaf ears. I look at Maggie, questioning. 

 

Maggie nods, turning in Sophia’s direction. “Nah, she’ll be talking to Rick outside for a bit.” Sophia nods for a bit, staring at us with her mouth slightly parted. She looks like she’s in thought.

 

Maggie leads me out of the house, and points over to a man behind a pickup truck folding up maps and gathering up colored rags. Maggie explains to me that they used them to track Sophia in the woods. She tells me to go over and talk to him, and I do, but I’m halfway there when I realize I don’t know what to say.

 

The man — Rick — sees me walking over. He finishes folding up all the supplies, leaving them on the truck’s bed, before turning to face me. I awkwardly walk over, eyeing our surroundings. There are handfuls of people over by tents in a small patch of trees, a little bit from the house. There’s a few cars, and an RV. A woman sits at the top, and from the outfit and blonde hair, it’s Andrea. She’s kicked back on a lawn chair, not looking out at anything, but she has a rifle around her shoulder. There’s an older man — Dale — leading an asian guy — Glenn — into the RV, and a black guy — T-Dogg — organizing other supplies by a campfire with a “POLICE” cap’d guy, Shane. I felt like I had seen everybody there was to see, but that I was forgetting someone.

 

“Hello,” Rick nods at me, politely. He’s in a sheriff’s uniform, and I nod back, not saying anything. “You’re Lila, if I’m correct?” He says, and I nod again.

 

“I’m Rick.” He offers his hand out towards me, and I take it.

 

“The leader,” I note, and he gets a pinched look on his face.

 

“No, I’m not really — I mean —“ He sputters a bit, trying to figure out what he is to these people, too.

 

I help him out a bit. “From everything I’ve heard, everyone looks at you as their leader. You’re the one that kept the search party going, looking for Sophia. I think you’re the one I need to talk to when it comes to Sophia’s group.” I see the man keep silent, letting my words sink in. He nods, getting my point. He didn’t give up on her, so that was good enough with me. I’m sure others in the group didn’t, either, but she was missing for days. If I had been in this group when it all happened, I don’t think I would be so adamant on Sophia’s survival. 

 

I blink the thought away. Sophia was alive. She was safe now, safer than with just me. And I wasn’t in this group, and wouldn’t be. Everything seemed too cozy here. I knew, from what Maggie had said, that there was some tension between Hershel’s family and Rick’s group, but I  didn’t see anything. They seemed to be cooperating just fine. The women — well, minus Andrea — were in the kitchen, cooking together for everyone. 

 

“Well, I think I’ll speak for everyone just fine when I say this: _thank you_.” Rick has a small smile on the sides of his mouth, buried a little from his 5 o’clock shadow. His blue eyes — Carl had his eyes — held nothing but complete and utter gratitude. I was taken back for a moment. “ _Thank you_ for saving Sophia. As much as I hate to admit it, and as much as I try not to think about it, she might not have been here without you.” I bite my lip, not knowing what to do with myself as he thanks me so wholeheartedly.

 

“I’m sure anyone else would have done what I did. And you helped out, too.” Rick raises his eyebrows, not hiding his surprise. 

 

“Me?” He questions, and I know I’m about to make myself look bad, but I keep going, trying not to think of the consequences. 

 

“Uhm, yeah,” I say, nodding, licking my lips to help with the dryness. “I was in the woods when it happened. I was getting my count in for the day — that’s how many walkers I can take down, if Sophia didn’t tell you yet. Also, ‘walkers’, as Sophia told me you called them, that’s an unique name for them, let me say — and I heard a girl scream. Then, I saw you.” Rick’s eyes narrow at me, suspicious.

 

“Well, almost,” I continue, feeling nervous even more now. Rick was intimidating. “I heard someone running, so I climbed a tree. You came out of nowhere right after. You leaned against the tree I was in, calling for Sophia, and started running again. I followed you, thinking you might have needed help trying to find — who I thought — was your daughter. I was staying back, not going to do anything unless I absolutely needed to. You told Sophia to stay under a brush, and led two walkers away. Sophia left, though, and I didn’t know who to go to. You or Sophia. I ended up going after Sophia, and well, you know..” I shrug, not really wanting to talk anymore. I felt like I had already dug myself in a hole.

 

Rick’s eyes had stopped being suspicious, and looked more clear. He looked like he understood something that he had been confused on. Maybe he had been confused on how I had found Sophia?

 

“She didn’t trust me at first,” I add, wanting to make Sophia look less bad. I did say she didn’t follow his instructions to stay hidden. “She ran away from me. She fell down a ravine, and got knocked out. I carried her out and to a church. We stayed on the roof together, and she even got out of this chain of rings I made us to stay more safe on the roof.” Rick nods again, and I feel more comfortable expanding on the story.

 

“Her doll, I think it’s still in this ravine. I went to get it, and she stayed up on the flat land. A walker came, chased her off. I left it behind. I really don’t think Sophia trusted me until I helped her kill a walker that was after her. She’s a smart kid,” I say, making sure he knows that much. Sophia was. She just had terrible luck.

 

“I’m glad it was you that could help her find her way back to her mom and us.” Rick says, putting a hand on my shoulder. I tense up, but don’t flinch away. I relax a bit, seeing that he’s unarmed.

  
“I’m sure anyone else would have done what I did,” I say again, but he shakes his head ‘no,’ a grim look on his face.

 

“I don’t think they would have,” he replies, and I understand. There were bad people out there. I wonder if he knew that from experience of the world now, or from before. He was a sheriff before everything, so he must have seen some things. Sophia had told me about his epic arrival to the group. He had been in a coma when everything had started, and somehow found his way back to his family. And just like that, everyone took to his natural leadership, letting him call the shots. The man had went through a lot, I could only guess.

 

“I saw the notebook,” he says, retracting his hand from my shoulder. I didn’t tense or flinch. I just watched as he looked like he was having an inner debate in his head. What was he thinking?  
  
“How many walkers have you killed?” He asks in a way that says he knows the answer, but feels like he should have confirmation, as if it wasn’t true.

 

“Not enough,” I say, straight-faced. Rick continues to look at me, before reaching towards his back. He didn’t have a weapon back there, though? I saw his back, and —

 

Oh.

 

Rick pulls his left hand back out, and a pocket-sized, leather journal is in it. My journal. I don’t instantly reach for it, but I want to.

 

Rick raises an eyebrow, gesturing to it.

 

“How many?” He repeats, and I lift my chin up, confident.

 

“One thousand, five hundred and forty-two,” I recite. Rick opens up the journal, flipping through the pages. He comes across the last page I wrote in, and he nods.

 

“How?” He asks, closing the book and handing it back to me. I take it, eagerly.

 

“By myself,” I state, wanting to make that clear. I only added my numbers. “I’ve been at it since almost the beginning of everything. I stayed in my apartment, thinking of what to do. I didn’t want to die, I knew that much. But I didn’t know what else I could do. So, I came up with a number. Decided I might as well help out the world in a way not a lot of people want to do. Almost like the job I had before — “ Rick interrupts me.

 

“Which was?” He asks, curious. “Sophia didn’t know, either.”

 

“Lead laboratory analyst in blood splatter for the city of Atlanta.” I recite, like I’m filing my taxes. Rick raises his brow.

 

“Not a lot of competition in the area,” I say, shrugging. “Not a lot of competition to kill as many walkers as possible. The math will fluctuate over time, but the original goal is five thousand. When I get there, I’ll figure something out.”

 

“You say this as though you believe there won’t be a cure for this anytime soon?” Rick questions, cocking his hip. I shift my weight.

 

“Do you?” He doesn’t say anything, just nods, looking away and around the long expanse of field around us. This was a pretty big farm, especially for being ran by one family. They were hardworking people. Rick seemed like one, too. I didn’t know the others all that well, and didn’t want to make any assumptions. Guessing that a family of what was previously four had taken care of this mult-acre farm, animals included, was different from guessing a group of complete strangers that met on the highway and camped in the mountains were, as well. I was being harsh, maybe, but I was also being weary.

 

Glenn, the asian boy, has just started walking out of the RV with slumped shoulders when Andrea screams out.

 

“Walker!” She yells, jumping up. She looks freaked the fuck out. Rick is already moving towards her direction. “Walker!”

 

“Just the one?” Rick asks, trying to block the sun as he follows her eyes. I see the three men out side of the RV run towards the weapons laying around the campsite. T-Dogg picks up my aluminum bat with the red tape on the handle from the side of a lawn chair. 

 

I’m saying, “Hey!” to him, offended that he’s taking my weapon away from me, as Andrea bets she can take the walker from where she’s from. T-Dogg gives her a disbelieving look, looking thoroughly tired and with no expectations of her making any shot. He gives me a glance, telling me he’s got this. His upper left arm is covered in thick bandages, looking torn up. I stay back, not wanting to get involved anymore, as it will only make the anxiety in these people worse.

 

“No, no, Andrea, put the gun down,” Rick says, urgent and slightly condescending, like he’s belittling a child on doing something for the hundredth time. 

 

“You’d bes’ let us handle this,” Shane says, coming out with T-Dogg from the shaded trees. His shirt is unbuttoned, flowing behind him. He’s carrying a pickaxe.

 

I squint in the direction the walker is in, and see it coming towards us, slowly. This is an easy kill,  but I keep my mouth shut. These people had experience in killing walkers, surely?

 

“Shane, hold up,” Rick says, turning to the other man, trying to stop everyone from acting rashly. “Hershel wants to deal with walkers.”

 

Shane switches the weapon to his right hand. “What for, man? We got it covered.” Shane looks around at everyone holding their weapons. It’s a lost battle.

 

Rick stares at him for a second, veins in his forehead working. He looks distressed, but not about the walker. About the people about to go kill it. 

 

“Damn it,” he grits out, running towards the RV. He comes out with a pistol, running after Shane, T-Dogg, and Glenn. Dale is on the latter of the RV, talking to Andrea. I walk over to them, not sure where else I could go. 

 

It’s quiet as the grunting of Shane and his limp leg grows more distant as the men go sprinting across the grassy land. Four guys, two injured, for one walker? They were cautious people, I’d give them that. 

 

They’re halfway across the field when I hear Andrea click her rifle. I look up at her, confused. A gunshot would attract more walkers.

 

“Andrea, don’t.” Dale says, panicked. 

 

“Back off, Dale,” she spits, looking through the scope. 

 

I squint harder at the group, seeing them halt in front of the walker. For some reason, so does the walker. A walker would have kept going, would have been more eager to get at the group. Rick’s gun is raised, but it lowers.

 

“That’s not —“ before I can finish, the gunshot pierces the air. I keep my mouth open, shocked, as the figure goes down. Rick turns so fast, screaming “No!” at the top of his lungs, repeating it.

 

I look back at Andrea, and see the satisfied smirk wipe off her face.

 

“You shot Daryl!” Dale says, shocked, and starts to run over to them. I follow suit, not knowing what else to do but stay by the RV. I can hear Andrea toppling off the RV, panicky.

 

The screen door of the house bangs open, all the girls from the kitchen spilling out, including Jimmy. Maggie and Hershel lead in the front. Dale, Andrea, and I are already running across the field, not looking back. 

 

“Rick!” I hear Lori screaming. 

 

“What on earth's going on out here?” Hershel’s deep bellow follows after, and I feel like I should turn back, start to profusely thank the man for treating my head, but a person just got shot in the head by their own group, mistaken for a walker.

 

“Oh my God,” Andrea says as we get closer. Rick and Shane are carrying what must be — or had been — Daryl. He’s limp. “Oh my God, is he dead?” She asks, coming up beside Shane, staring at Daryl’s body.

 

“Unconscious,” Rick states between gritted teeth. “You just grazed him.”

 

I walk beside Glenn, confused on how someone could look this dead and not be. He was covered in blood. Fresh blood. 

 

“But look at him,” Glenn says, pointing at everything there is of the man. “What the hell happened? He's wearing _ears_.” It’s only then that I notice the necklace around the unconscious man’s neck. Ears. Actual human — now walker, judging by the decomposition — ears were looped on a necklace. Four of them, two pairs. He must have killed them while he was out. 

 

Rick looks over at where Hershel is standing, ripping the necklace of ears off of the other man’s neck. “Let's keep that to ourselves.” he says, placing it inside his shirt.

 

“He’s bleeding from his side,” I point out, noticing the tied cloth around his middle, a dark pool of blood coming through the threads. Shane and Rick lift Daryl higher up over their shoulders, quickening their pace.

 

This man was out looking for a little girl I had already brought back. He encountered walkers, and then got (almost) shot in the head by his own group. 

 

T-Dogg bends down, picking up something.

“Isn’t this Sophia’s?” He asks, raising it up. Everyone turns to him, and stares at the rag doll. “Bet she’ll be happy to have this back,” he says, and I see everyone nod, some of them flicking glances my way. I guess this was a weird day, even for them. 

 

We make our way back to the house, Hershel barking questions in between orders for medical supplies. Maggie and the older blonde woman — Patricia — go running in with Hershel, Shane and Rick continuing to carry Daryl up the house’s stairs. Sophia looks worried and guilty. 

 

I walk up to the rest of the ones still standing there, and I look at Sophia. She’s gripping her mother’s hand tightly.

 

“It’s not your fault,” I say. For her benefit and mine, it must be said. “It’s not your fault, it was just an accident. An accident that grazed him.” Sophia keeps eye contact with me. She looks like she doesn’t believe me, but rationality looks like it’s about to win over. The point drives home when she looks at her mom. Her mom was staring at me, her distressed face relaxing a bit in knowing it was just a graze. Her mom looks back at Sophia, and she nods her head, giving a tight smile. Sophia unclenches her grip on her mother’s hand, nodding back. She looks back at me, but doesn’t say anything. I choose to take my chance, and walk back with Beth and Jimmy to the kitchen. 

 

Shane comes down later, asking for Sophia, to surprise Daryl. Carol (I finally learn her name) walks up with her, and I wonder to myself if there was something there between Carol and Daryl, besides their names rhyming. If there was, Sophia would have said something if there was.

 

I’m not much help in cooking dinner. I was a pretty good cook before everything happened, but I wasn’t a grand chef or anything. I knew enough to know that spices were what really made a meal delicious. All I end up doing is throwing mixed herbs and pepper on a few items here and there, and taking the ham out of the oven. It feels odd to be doing something so normal. I feel like I’m not really there. And I don’t mind it. 

 

We’re all sitting at the table soon enough, and behind the scratching and grazing of the silverware against plates and teeth, there is a stiff silence. The food is delicious, and I don’t bother in hiding that I’m piling serving-sized spoonfuls of food on my plate. No one even notices, actually. I’m sitting between T-Dogg and Dale, across from Lori and Andrea. Rick is to Lori’s right, Patricia to Andrea’s left, and Shane is across from Rick, beside T-Dogg. At the ends of the table are Hershel to my right, and Carol and Sophia together at the other. Sophia has been keeping her (now clean) doll close to her chest since getting it back. Dale is between Hershel and I. Glenn, Maggie, Beth, and Jimmy are at another table, eating just as quietly.

 

The silence is broken by Glenn after I’m halfway through my food.

 

“Does anybody know how to play guitar? Dale found a cool one,” he says, smiling, trying to relieve the tension. The room only pauses, getting more quiet. Not even the scraping of silverware is heard anymore.

 

“Somebody's got to know how to play,” he says again, his smile wavering, but trying to stay strong.

 

Patricia speaks up for the first time since I’ve seen her. “Otis did.”

 

Hershel nods his head, looking at her with compassion. “Yes, and he was very good, too.” No one makes a move to continue to eat, so neither do I. Hershel brings his fork and knife back to his plate, and everyone follows. 

 

I swallow the food that was sitting in my mouth, watching as Glenn turns in his seat, his eyes downcast. I look around the table, and see Rick give Shane a weird look. Everyone else is looking straight down at their food, but I see it. Rick looks around the table, and catches my eye. I blink at him, not really knowing what to make of anything. He look at Hershel, and I do, too, but the man is cutting at his ham. I look back at Rick, but he’s looking down at his food now, too.

 

Everything is so awkward.

 

I finish up the last half of my food, not even bothering to be quick, as it only comes naturally from how hungry I was. I’m the first to get up from the table, Maggie looks up, having been in some stupor, as I’m already halfway to the kitchen when she tells me that I don’t have to clean the dish. I frown, not processing what she’s requesting.

 

“This isn’t my home. It’s the least I can do.” Whatever I said caused looks to go around the table. People making eye contact with other people, an unhidden conversation between them. I hurry off, walking over to the sink. I clean my plate, drying it, and placing it back in the cabinets. I walk back upstairs, aimless. I don’t know where to go. I intended to leave, but it’s already dark out. Besides, where was I going to sleep? The room they put me in when I woke up, probably. I start to walk there, but stop. I needed to go to the bathroom. There’s one right beside me as soon as I step off from the stairs, and I go in.

 

I spend a little too much time just sitting on the toilet, amazed. I can actually sit on a functioning toilet. I hear footsteps outside the bathroom, and it gets me out of my fascinated stupor. I flush, and hurriedly wash my hands. Someone else probably had, too.

 

As I step out of the bathroom, I see that no one is waiting for me. I walk back to the room I was in previously, about to open the door, when I hear the soft sound of lips pecking against something. I freeze.

 

“Watch out, I got stitches,” I hear a man, with a soft, but unmistakably southern accent. Daryl?

 

“You need to know something,” a woman. Carol. Oh. Is _this.._ ?

 

“You did more for my little girl today than her own daddy ever did in his whole life.” 

 

“I didn't do anything Rick ‘r Shane wouldn’ ‘ve done. ‘Certainly not what that Lila-girl already did.” I didn’t know if to be offended or not. ‘Lila-girl’?

 

“I know.” A pause. “You’re every bit as good as them. Every bit.” I hesitate, unsure of interrupting, and decide not to. I retreat back to the bathroom, realizing I had left the light on. I go to switch it off just as Carol steps out of the room. I flick the switch just as she turns, pretending that I wasn’t eavesdropping on her conversation. I think I did pretty good, as she gives me the most gleeful smile I had ever seen on her since encountering her. I nod, smiling back.

 

So, there was a thing there.

 

I hesitate by the bathroom door as Carol makes her way down the stairs. I could sleep in the bathtub if need be, or the roof, or the couch, or the top of the RV, so long as I had a blanket. I really didn’t know where I would be staying for the night. Regardless of where, my blanket was in the room Daryl decided in now. I pursed my lips, looking towards the door.

 

Well, we were going to meet someway, right?

 

I knock on the door, figuring it was common courtesy. I knew he was awake already, but he didn’t. I hear a grunt from the other side. I slowly open the door, unsure if he’d get angry. From what Sophia had described to me, this guy was short-tempered. He had a brother, but he got lost in Atlanta on a supply run, and the group that went out had brought back Rick instead. The man’s name was Merle, and he wasn’t dead. Just lost.

 

Daryl turns his head, glancing over his shoulder, expecting someone else. When he sees me, he stiffens, sitting up a little straighter, and wincing as he does. He has a large white bandage taped to his left side, and a headband of a bandage wrapped around his head, almost like me. His was focused more around his temple, looking like a rubber band around a bottle. Mine was more set around the back, angling forward in the front. He has his back to the headboard, looking at me. I can’t understand anything from the look.

 

“Uhm,” I start, not sure of what to say in greeting. ‘Hi,’ and ‘Hey,’ seemed too casual, but that was what Carol and Maggie had opened up with for me. “Hello,” I go with, cringing at the deadpanned way it came out. Nice.

 

Daryl doesn’t say anything, just continues to look at me. His eyes roam over my face, my head, my hair, my entire body. He’s taking in more than my features, and more of my mannerisms and stance. He’s sizing me up.

 

He hums a greeting.

 

“I’m Lila,” I say, trying to get us into some leeway of a normal conversation.

 

“I know,” he says. I expected that. I was unconscious for a few hours, but Sophia did work in letting everyone know exactly who I was and everything we did together. When I had explained things to Rick, as roughly as possible, he only seemed mildly surprised by few things. That being said, the only thing he didn’t know about was how I saw him while hiding in a tree. I hadn’t told Sophia that, given the circumstances we were in.

 

“And you’re Daryl,” I say, nodding, looking around the room awkwardly. There were more antiseptic bottles on the dresser, and the windows were latched shut. Everything else still looked the same. My blanket was folded in the chair in the corner. I stared at it, happy to see it not actually on the bed with Daryl.

 

“Rick and Sophia told me ‘bout how ya found ‘er,” Daryl says, quietly, a little mumbled. I look back at him. He’s staring me down. “We were out lookin’ for a lil’ girl, and you had her right beside ya, takin’ her right back to us.” I can’t tell what he’s getting at. Was he bitter about how long it took? Was it because I found her at all? Was he happy that I brought her back alive?

 

“Ya forgot her doll, though,” he says, huffing as he reaches for the wine glass full of water. He takes a long gulp, looking over at my blanket. My lips are chapped, I note.

 

“Well,” I say, walking further in the room and towards my blanket, breaking eye contact with him.  “figured it was either her or the doll at the time, so I went with the obvious choice. I’m glad you brought it back. She’s happier with it.” I make to leave the room, figuring it’s the end of conversation.

 

“Thanks,” he says. And I look over at him, immediately making eye contact. “Thanks for doin’ what we couldn’t.” He sounds sincere, and vulnerable, and it feels odd. This isn’t the same guy Sophia described. I wonder if Sophia going missing, and then returning, changed something. 

 

“Y’know,” I say, effectively continuing the pattern of not saying ‘you’re welcome’ to every person that has said ‘thank you’ to me today, “we’re kinda twinning, don’t cha think?” I point my index finger up to my head, motioning around my bandage. I’m smiling, happy that we didn’t start on the wrong foot, happy that we didn’t end up like my first encounter with the group on the highway, face down in the street.

 

Daryl stares back me, placing the rest of his wineglass on the trey piled with food.

 

He blinks, and a small ghost of a smile forms on his lips. He snorts, causing it to fade back down. 

 

“See ya later,” I say, stepping out of the room. 

 

“See ya,” he grunts, picking up the plate of food from the nightstand, sounding too awake for the time that it was.

 

I close the door behind me, a small smile on my face.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lila's name is pronounced "LIE-la," just in case you wanted confirmation. (:
> 
> Also! Important question: Should this be rated E? I was debating on whether to add a smut scene much, much later on in this work between Daryl and Lila, but I wasn't sure if you guys would want a lot of details about it, or for me to imply it happened at all. What do you guys think?


	6. Pairs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually wrote half this chapter, but felt like it was all wrong, and deleted everything. I started off in a completely different place when I realized I was skipping over some major "getting to know you" interactions between her and the rest of the group.
> 
> For this story, I’ve been rewatching episodes of the Walking Dead on Netflix. I really can’t wait to get to after they leave the farm in this story. So much has yet to happen!

I end up staying on top of the RV for the night.

 

There’s a lawn chair on the other side of the RV, facing towards me and the open land. T-Dogg is on watch for the night. I know that the RV was the best watch point, but I also knew they kept the chair close to the ladder. They were still on guard around me, even if they acted like everything was fine with me staying around the group, like I was some new addition to their already diverse "family."

 

Dale, Carol, and Sophia insisted I come inside, that there was room, but I knew there wasn’t. Dale’s RV was the epitome of desired wheels in this new world we were in, but it wasn’t the roomiest for four people to sleep in comfortably. Sophia and Carol would take the bed, no doubt, and Dale the couch. I would either sleep on the floor, or the seats. Neither seemed appealing to me.

 

Spencer’s family had an Allegro RV bus that they would take family road trips in. That thing was at least half the square feet of my apartment. I remember going on two trips with them. Once to New York, New York, and another time, a year later, to Philadelphia City Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The former was mostly for Spencer and Aiden, and the latter was more for Deanna and Reg. I liked both places equally, but the complete and utter excitement that crossed Spencer’s face as we walked in Grand Central Terminal would never leave my memory of him.

 

In that RV bus Reg had bought, him and Deanna slept in the queen sized bed in the back. A full length couch was in the middle of the bus, and that was where Spencer and I slept. Across from us was a recliner, thick with soft cushions, that Aiden slept in. The guys took turns driving through the night, and Spencer and I would fool around when Aiden was on that duty. Never much, just kissing and caressing. When Aiden wasn’t, he would be snoring, kicked back in the chair right across from us. Spencer and I spent nights figuring out ways to get him to stop. He wasn’t super loud, and if we had fallen asleep before him, it wouldn’t have bothered us. But once he started, you couldn’t ignore it.

 

I don’t regret doing more with him, and I don’t regret how we ended. If I hadn’t heard the end of that phone call, I don’t know what I would be doing now. I probably would have went up to Virginia, searching for him. I would have been looking for a lost cause, not even knowing it. I’m glad I had closure, as flimsy as it was. Those screams of pure terror… his entire family… they were at peace now, I could only hope. On the really bad nights, I would despair on what their fate really turned out to be. The hopeless possibility that they were a roamer, walking around and eating people. I didn't know which was worse -- never finding them and putting them out of their misery, or one day stumbling across them as a walker.

 

Dale comes up the ladder of the stairs and hands me a pillow. I resist it, believing it to be his own, but he says it’s Daryl’s, from his tent. It would just be laying there, unused, if I didn’t take it for the night. I accept it, gratefully thanking him. He smiles, nods, and goes back down and inside the RV. He was a thoughtful man. A good one.

 

I spend the next hour with the new pillow staring at the sky, lost in thinking about my future. I would be leaving tomorrow. These people, they had enough to worry about. I didn’t need to extend my stay anymore than I had to. Rick’s group wouldn’t be staying very long, either, if what I was hearing around was accurate enough. Soon, we would all be going our separate ways. I fell asleep to the question of where I would go next. I didn’t know the answer.

 

* * *

 

I’m awake before anyone else. The sun’s early rays going straight to my face. I was used to this occurrence. It always happened when I slept in a place with no roof. I begin to fold my blanket up, but stop. What would I even be doing this early?

 

I could sneak off. I could take some extra food and run off with my weapons and backpack. T-Dogg wouldn’t see me in the shadows of the trees. I could just say I was going to pee. It was a long shot, but maybe it would work.

 

Or I could just grab my own things, sneak off during the day when everyone was busy. I could, and as unlikely as it seemed, I would have a better chance if I left during the day. It would be safer, too.

 

I sit up, looking over the RV’s rails, and stare at the scenery. It’s beautiful. I don’t want to get up. I glance behind me, and see T-Dogg looking up at the skyline, too. 

 

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he softly says, and I hum in agreement. We hadn’t talked much, and the most our interactions had consisted of were looks from yesterday. 

 

“Thank you,” he says, sincerity lacing his voice. I turn back to look at him fully. The sky is pink and orange, casting us in a nice early glow. “You really gave this group what we needed.” I continue to gaze at him, wondering if he meant that what this group needed was Sophia. Of course they needed her, but he made it some like she was more than just a person.

 

“Hope,” he states, looking me in the eye. “Our hope that Sophia would be found, alive and okay. If she wasn’t found like that… everything would be a whole lot different.” He’s not looking me in the eye anymore, but back at the sky. A small frown on his face.

 

“It wasn’t a problem,” I say, turning back to the sky as well. “Someone else could have done what I did.” I came to understand from my past experiences that “anybody would have” was something no one believed. I knew it wasn’t completely true, either, but I still played with the existential idea.

 

“Yeah, but you can’t count on every possibility,” he said, getting up and stretching. He let out a contented sigh. He walked down the ladder, and a moment later, Glenn was walking up. Glenn and I talked for moment. It was a little longer than T-Dogg and I’s conversation, even though it consisted of mostly the same things. We talked about the sky, he said his thanks to me for finding Sophia, and then about what everyone would probably do today. Now that Sophia was back, everyone would be able to focus more on things they had been putting off. 

 

I learned from Glenn that Hershel was only letting Rick’s group stay until Carl was healed up. It made sense; the boy was shot and was still bed-ridden for the next few days. I also learned that Hershel was a veterinarian, and Patricia was his assistant. Glenn acted more fidgety than any of the other times I had seen him, and I tried not to act like I thought he was weird.

 

It was an hour later from when T-Dogg originally left did I start to see everyone peeking their heads out from their tents. Carol and Sophia were by the campfire, starting to make breakfast, and soon enough, everyone was sitting around the campfire, eating fresh eggs and fruit that Hershel and his family provided for them. I stayed on top of the RV with Glenn, unsure where I belonged.

 

Sophia brought up a plate for Glenn and I, and we thanked her with equal enthusiasm. She left, but came back up with her own plate, sitting down beside me. I tried to hide my surprise, but failed. She smiled at me.

 

“You looked lonely,” she says, and I blink in surprise. I wasn’t lonely. I didn’t think I was, at least.

 

I dig into the food, and feel my body get a little warmer from the temperature of it. It had been awhile since I ate hot food, and these people ate it on the daily now. They looked like they were making a home on a patch of someone else’s land, and I could see the reluctance in leaving. This place was a beacon of light for any survivors still around. Fresh food, running water, health care, safety in the space. Hell, I wouldn’t mind keeping a home base here.

 

I shake the thought from my head as I gather Sophia, Glenn, and I's plates. They don’t want to give me them, but I figure I could at least carry them down for them. I had just landed my feet on grass when Carol is suddenly standing them, taking the plates from my hands while she smiles. I let her walk away with them. I didn’t know how they cleaned them out here anyways. 

 

In a matter of minutes, everyone is up and about, busying themselves with whatever pressing matter they had. Rick and Shane are gathered by the truck, talking, and I look for Sophia. She’s still on top of the RV with Glenn, so I go back up and see if she had any idea where my belongings were.

 

As soon as I ask, her entire demeanor changes, closing up.

 

“Why would you want them?” She questions, and I frown. 

 

“They're my things, Sophia, I can’t leave without them.” Sophia toys with her top lip with her bottom row of teeth for a moment, then stops.

 

“I just think you should really think about it,” she starts, holding one of her arms with the other behind her, balancing back and forth on her feet. She's trying too hard to act nonchalant. “My momma says there’s safety in numbers. It’s not good to go back out there by yourself. You can stay. Here, with us.” She continues, not at all quietly. Glenn tries to look anywhere but at us.

 

I stay quiet, pretending to think about it. If I really did think about it, I would talk myself into it, and later on talk myself out. 

 

“Carl still wants you to help teach him how to kill a walker, like you helped me. And my momma says we have to thank you in any way possible for what you did. We can’t do any of that if you leave.” She looks more confident now, like I will stay.

 

“Sophia…” I start, running a hand back through my hair, getting it more out of my face. I hold it there, enjoying the fact it isn’t flying all around now. I should tie it back. “I’m not used to this. Everything is…”

 

She offers to finish my thought. “Nice?”

 

“Too much,” I state. “You guys got something good here. It _is_ nice. But if I stay, it could ruin the dynamics of things.”

  
“Dynamics?” She asks, not knowing the word. I feel like she understands what dynamics are, just not knowing there was a word for the concept.

 

“The flow, the way things work.” I throw, looking around as I do. Everyone looks busy, and I can’t tell if anyone else is overhearing this. Glenn couldn't even joke that he didn't.

 

“There’s enough work to go around. You’d do really good with the supply runs.” She prompts, sounding hopeful. I shake my head.

 

“That’s the thing, Sophia. I’m better at killing walkers than living around other people.” 

 

“You haven’t had a chance to before, but now you do. Yesterday was the first day, imagine all the others we’ll have.”

 

“Sophia, I’ve been under the impression you didn’t like me _until_ yesterday.” She looks bashful at my confession, kicking her shoe against the roof of the RV. She frowns with her whole face, concentrating on something I can't see.

 

“I was scared when you found me. But I'm not anymore.” She looks up, determination in her eyes. For what, I don’t know.

 

“Exactly. As soon as you’re out there, things change. You’re still just a kid, Sophia, you don’t understand some things. Even for me, it’s easy to forget about everything when I'm standing right here, but nothing’s going away. The setting’s different, but I’m still the same person.” She flushes to her ears. 

  
“So am I. Sorry I can’t grow without being labeled 'just a kid.'” She says calmly, dramatically. She turns abruptly, hair swishing above her shoulders. I finally realize she doesn't have her headband on.

 

I can barely see the top of her head as she goes down the ladder when suddenly one of her shoes slips against the bar. Her breath hitches. I immediately reach down, grabbing one of her wrists and the back of her purple shirt, dragging her back to the top. 

 

She grunts as she lands on the solid surface. 

 

“Sophia?” I hear Carol call, nervous. Sophia looks up at me from between strands of her messy hair, she’s on high guard, and I don’t know what to say to her. I stare back.

 

“I”m fine,” she calls back to her mom, maintaining eye contact with me. “Just slipped.” 

 

“Come down when you’re ready, baby. We can go look at the horses.” I hear footfalls go further from the RV, and I realize that Carol was in the RV itself. Did she hear everything that we said?

 

“Watch your step,” I say, breaking our stare-down, wanting to get out of this place as soon as possible. 

 

“You, too,” she says, quieter, and I hesitate. She sounded defeated. As I turned back around to step down, she kept her head angled from me. Glenn was looking at her worriedly.

 

“I’m sorry,” I am. I didn’t think anyone would care if I left. They seemed to already have a lot to handle. I didn’t think I would cause anyone to feel hurt by my actions. Why did she even care?

 

Sophia continues to look away from me, and I know it’s for the best we don’t get attached.

 

* * *

 

Sophia and I see each other again at lunch time. 

 

I had my backpack back on my shoulders, but not my weapons. Rick informed me on the “No guns” policy that Hershel legislated to everyone that was on his land. I wouldn’t be leaving until I had my only means of defense beyond running. Despite this, as soon as Sophia saw the black straps, she narrowed her eyes, turning away from me and holding a bowl still as her mom piled in a type of chicken stew. It smelled delicious.

 

“Honey, will you take this to Carl upstairs? He’s sitting up already, maybe play some cards together after you’re done?” Lori says, wiping down the counters. They had made food for everyone before some of  group were to go out for target practice. 

 

Sophia balanced two bowls, both steaming and probably burning her small hands, when Carol awkwardly looked over her shoulder from cleaning some other dishes they used to cook, a crease in her eyebrows.

 

“What about Daryl? I don’t think she’d be able to carry them all up.”

 

I speak up, wanting to clear the misunderstanding up with Sophia as soon as possible. I wanted to leave, but she didn’t want me to. And right now, I couldn’t. It was best to have her know that I wasn't than to have her wince every time she saw me. 

 

“I can help,” I said, picking up the only bowl left on the counter, unmistakably for Daryl. I put down my own bowl, not even touched yet, and say I’ll be coming back to it. I walk over to where Sophia is, taking one of the bowls from Sophia’s tense hands. I could see the irritated pinkness of them. She’d of carried it up without saying anything, too. 

 

“Thank you,” Lori says, sincerely. I nod in reply, following after Sophia to the stairs.

 

As soon as she’s almost to the landing of the second floor, I clear my throat.

 

“I’m not leaving.” I say as quietly as possible. She falters, almost stopping, but continuing towards Carl’s door. She knocks, and I hear a chirped, “Come in,” before she opens it.

 

Carl’s sitting up against the headboard, practicing shuffling cards. We smile and greet each other. I give him time to put the deck of cards on the nightstand before I place a pillow on his lap. He eagerly grasps the bowl’s edges as I place it on the pillow, and says his thanks before digging in.

 

“Hey! Wait for me to come back,” Sophia admonishes, and I smile at the sheepish look on Carl’s face. 

 

“Sorry, I haven’t had something this hot in ages,” he says, and Sophia goes to place her bowl on the opposite nightstand, the one without cards. There’s a chair already pulled up by that side of the bed.

 

I walk back out with Sophia, and go further down the hall to Daryl’s room. We stand outside of it, Sophia’s hand on the handle, but not making to turn the handle. My hands tingle from the heat.

 

“Sophia,” I say, extending her name a little awkwardly, gesturing to the door.

 

“I’m glad you changed your mind. I don’t want you out there by yourself. I don’t want us to not have you, either. You’re really good at saving people,” Sophia looks up at me from behind her lashes, happiness clear as day in her smile. She has a smudge on her cheek, and I feel my stomach churn with the innocence of it. My stomach audibly rumbles, though, and Sophia looks down at my middle, giggles, and opens the door.

 

Daryl is standing up, his front facing the window, but head facing us. He moved his head fast, or he heard us before we came in. The thought only solidifies my earlier theory that privacy was not a given with so many peoples in one space. Daryl limps over to the bed when he sees my hands, motioning for me to hand the bowl over. I give it to him, our hands brushing together for a brief second. Daryl’s eyes jump up, but I’m trying to make sure not to spill it on the injured man. It wasn't on purpose, he doesn't need to get all cautious.

 

“Hey, Daryl,” Sophia says. Daryl grunts at her, already putting a spoonful of food in his mouth. Sophia doesn't reprimand him like she did with Carl. “How’re you feeling?”

 

“As good as I look,” he says after swallowing, looking at her.

 

She wrinkles her nose. “Gross?” She offers, and Daryl twists his mouth, narrowing his eyes at her.

 

“Not as gross as you. Ya mama know you go around with dirt on ya face?” He puts down his spoon, tapping his left cheek.

 

Sophia’s jaw drops a fracture, touching her cheeks. She hurriedly walks to the bathroom, checking herself out in the mirror. I hear the faucet come on, and can only guess she’s rubbing it off.

 

“I see we ain’t rmatchin’ no more.” Daryl uses the finger he had to gesture at his cheek to point at his head. I touch my own. I had taken the bandage wrap off earlier in the day. When I had saw myself in the mirror of one of the house’s bathrooms, I decided the wrap wasn’t doing much good anymore, and was looking more like a fashion accessory in the end. 

 

I rub the side of my head, then realize I’m only frizzing it out, and start to smooth it down. “Yeah, didn’t have much use for it anymore.”

 

“I looked better than ya, I know. Don’t have to go comin’ up with excuses now.” Daryl says, scooping another spoonful in his mouth. I let out a surprised laugh, not expecting him to say that. 

 

Sophia has just walked out of the bathroom, but she hesitates by the doorframe. I walk back to the door we came in through, opening it and turning back to the man. I saw how him and Sophia interacted, and tried to take a note or two from it. 

 

“Guess the gunshot did something to your eyesight, too. Obviously, you’re not seeing clearly.” I smirk over my shoulder. Daryl sits cross legged on the bed, chewing on his food, staring at me again. I turn away, looking at Sophia and smiling encouragingly. 

 

“C’mon, Sophia, the food’s gonna get cold.” It wouldn’t so soon, but I didn’t think this encounter was going to go any further. 

 

Sophia power walks over to me, a happy skip in her step. “Yeah,” she says, going out before me and towards Carl’s room. I close the door behind me, not looking back.

 

I walk past Carl’s door, but it’s open. The two children wave at me from inside, Sophia lightly jumping up on the bed.

 

“Join us,” Sophia says, patting an empty side of Carl’s bed. She’s leaning sideways, her legs bent to the side, stirring her food in front of her. The bed was big. There could be room for me, too.

 

I thought about where else I could go to eat, and came up short. I smiled at the pair on the bed, nodding and going downstairs to get my bowl. When I get to the kitchen, no one is around. There’s a large cooking pot still on the stove, the flame on low. I look around again, taking another glance around, before I place another serving spoon of stew in my bowl.

 

Carol comes around the corner in that moment.

 

“Oh!” She says, not expecting me. “I was wondering when you’d come back.” She smiles at me, and goes to wash a spoon. I awkwardly start to place the lid back on the pot.

 

“I was just… just getting some more —“ I cut myself short, trying not to look guilty. I didn’t even know if everyone else had gotten a serving, and here I was grabbing more.

 

“It’s okay, we made more so people could,” she says, finishing cleaning her spoon. She gets another one from the drawer, and I try not to look too much at her hands.

 

“I dropped it,” she explains, noticing. Was I that inconspicuous?

 

“Ahh,” I vocalize, not sure what to say. “Um, Sophia’s in Carl’s room. I was gonna go up there, play some cards with them after we eat and stuff.” I motion a finger to the stairs, tilting my head a bit. Carol smiles at me.

 

“If you need anything, just let me know, “ and she’s off again, going around the corner she came from.

 

As I go back up the stairs, I try to see how Daryl and her got together, but can’t come up with any solid ideas. They didn't seem like a picture perfect couple. Maybe it was just Daryl's ruggedness. He acted more open around Sophia, so maybe that was it? I doubted he would have been as easygoing as he was when I gave him his lunch had Sophia not been there. Maybe he was only open around Sophia, and Carol stayed around her daughter a lot, so they bonded from there?  Maybe Sophia had a part in them getting together, and she just didn't know the full extent of it? It was a mystery to me.

 

I eat with Carl and Sophia on the bed. I’m sitting on the side, my legs hanging off the bed by a few inches. I swing my feet as we talk about animals. Sophia thinks long and hard about her favorite animal before she gives up, stating that she loves all animals, but not reptiles, as those are “freaky.” Carl likes dogs the most, but he thinks deers are almost, if not equally, as cool as them. He goes into a tangent over a comic book he had read, something called “Science Dog.” From what he explained, it sounded pretty interesting. I told him I’d "totally read it if I found it somewhere." He then went to explain even more types of comic books that he had read, and while some sounded a little whacky, most of them sounded pretty cool.

 

“The pictures must be awesome,” I say to him, enraptured in a story he describes about a FBI agent that is really an alien trying to cover up his own tracks from the government, but always causing these outrageous accidents that bring even more attention to himself. Carl nods his head fast, eyes wide and hurriedly chewing his food.

 

Sophia takes the time he’s using to chew to say what she really thinks. “You guys are so weird,” but she smiles at us nonetheless, shaking her head and looking down at her almost empty bowl.

 

“You just haven’t given it a chance,” Carl refutes. His bowl is empty, so I take it, placing it on top of mine. He smiles at me, mouthing his thanks. I return the expression.

 

Sophia looks up long enough to roll her eyes at him, smiling silly. I take her empty bowl and get up to wash them. 

 

“You’re coming back, right, Lila?” Sophia asks, looking at me expectantly. 

 

“Yeah,” I nod. “How about you guys set up the Concentration game while I’m gone?” I turn to leave just as Sophia looks at me confused. Carl’s face lights up with glee, already telling Sophia what kind of game it is. I hear her say a soft, “oh, I know that,” as I make my way downstairs. Like I originally thought, she knew a lot of things, just not the names for them

 

I didn’t know who I expected to see in the kitchen, but it definitely wasn’t a frantically kissing Maggie and Glenn.

 

My mouth opens, shocked more than anything, and it makes a sound with it that catches the attention of the pair, Maggie exclaiming, “Oh, god!” and a scarlet faced Glenn not far behind with a “Oh, crap.”

 

“Sorry,” I blurt just as they do. I say it again, hoping to say it clearer, but we say it all together again. A nervous laugh comes up from me, and I feel my knees jitter. This was so awkward.

 

“We’re so sorry, we didn’t know —“ Glenn starts, Maggie cutting in to finish his sentence. 

“— Didn’t know more people would come down. We thought everyone was out of the house that could actually walk.” I feel myself laugh again, this time at the absurdity of it. People that could actually walk?

 

“It’s okay, I really — it doesn’t matter to me — I’m just here to clean the dishes —“ I try to interject, but Maggie steps up to me, taking the dishes from me.

 

“I got it, thank you,” she says, face still flushed. “I really don’t mind, just.. please don’t go around telling everyone?” She says, a little desperately and a little more hard around the edges in her eyes. Seems as though this wasn’t a public relationship yet. 

 

“Yeah, no problem, not an issue,” I nod, ready to just leave. Yet another time today I got out of doing dishes.

 

I go back up the stairs, stepping into the room Carl and Sophia were in, and see them smiling knowingly at me. 

 

“What?” I ask, closing the door behind me.

 

“So you found out about them.” Carl raises an eyebrow, and I look at Sophia’s similar expression.

 

“What, you guys knew?” I ask, confused. There were rows of cards laid out neatly at the end of Carl’s bed. Sophia was sitting further up now, closer to Carl, so my eyes didn’t work too hard in looking back and forth between them.

 

“Everyone knew,” she says, shrugging. “There’s three couples here, and it’s pretty easy to tell them apart.”

 

“Three?” I ask, sitting down on the bed. Carl sits up a little straighter. 

 

“Yeah,” he says, grunting a little. “My mom and dad. Beth and Jimmy. And Maggie and Glenn,” his voice raises in pitch near the end, as if giving out easy instructions. I felt like, if I had any questions about the structures on this farm, these kids would know all the answers. Sophia had only been here a day, and Carl has been nowhere but his bed. That said a lot.

 

“What about your mom and Daryl?” I ask, moving my eyes to Sophia. Sophia furrows her eyebrows.

 

“Mom and Daryl?” She asks, and I nod. Carl chokes out a laugh, raising his hand to his mouth to snicker. Sophia glares at him, and I try not to fidget. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked. But I was sure they were together. They weren’t that big on PDA, yeah, but that didn't say much. None of the couples Carl had listed were, either. Rick and Lori were married, but they didn’t act like it beyond the married couple arguments they would have out in the open. Glenn and Maggie had tried to keep it secret, but you couldn’t keep all of your secrets when so many people were walking around high strung and maybe a little trigger-happy, in some people's cases. Beth and Jimmy were still young, and always under the watchful eye of Patricia and Hershel. I didn't even know they were together if I didn't notice the disapproving stares they received when they were talking too low to each other.

 

“That would be weird,” Sophia declares, and Carl agrees nonverbally. “Mom.. she only needs me,” Sophia says, softly and a little vulnerably. Carl makes work in being the first to turn a pair of cards over on the bed. Either ready to play, or possibly picking up on Sophia’s emotions from her statement. Maybe both. He groans in no time at all, disappointed in not starting off with an immediate win.

 

Sophia goes next, and purses her lips at not getting a match, either, but she does get one of Carl’s unmatched cards. 

 

“No way!” Carl cries, gesturing with both his hands as I use the knowledge of both of the card’s positions in getting the first pair of the game on my first turn. He looks at me, disbelieving. 

 

“Not fair,” Sophia says, crossing her arms cooly.

 

I grin, showing the two cards to them. “Can’t say I cheated. I wasn’t even in the room.” I place the cards by the lamp behind me. 

 

Carl scoffs, but moves his hands to the cards. We play for awhile, and when Sophia gets the last pair, we all delve into our cards, counting out the pairs.

 

“Eight,” Carl holds his hands out, displaying eight digits.

 

“Eight,” Sophia challenges, holding out her fingers like Carl.

 

I let them stop their stare down to look at me before I uncross my arms, holding my hands out and open.

 

“Ten.” 

 

They both throw their heads back, groaning loud in defeat and frustration, throwing their hands down. I smile wide, chuckling. Despite their misery, it felt good to win.

 

Carl points an accusing finger at me. “You knew we weren’t good at this game,” he criticizes.

 

“No, but now I do,” I slyly smile, raising a finger to his scrunched nose. “I win.” I poke him on it, lessening the scrunch. A smile grows on his face, and he rubs at his nose.

 

“Again.” Sophia starts picking up our cards, trying to shuffle them awkwardly, not taking no for an answer. I take them from her, tapping them straight against my thigh before separating them in half to do a riffle shuffle.

 

“Teach me that,” Carl blurts. I look at him, then my hands, shrugging. “Sure.”

 

“Me, too,” Sophia edges forward, and I think for a moment, trying to remember all the ways I learned to shuffle.

 

“I can teach you guys some other ways, too, if you want.” I propose, and their eyes twinkle, a spark of something in there.

 

“Yes, please,” they say in unison. I smile, straightening the cards out again.

 

Spencer’s mother, Deanna, had taught me a few tricks. She was a master at poker, mostly from her expertise in reading people, and knew a lot about the sport of it. She even knew a few magic tricks that involved the 52 cards, only showing me how to do some of those. The first time I had played poker against her, she won within minutes. Spencer watched the entire time, laughing periodically at my misfortune. Deanna patted me on the back afterwards, gave me a spare deck of cards, and sat me down to tell me more about the game. She taught me shuffling techniques, strategies on reading another player’s cards, and pointing out that I had obvious tells. All while Spencer rubbed my side from his place in the chair next to me, looking up a basketball game’s highlights on his phone. 

 

I resisted letting the tears come falling from my eyes as I taught Carl and Sophia the techniques I had learned less than a year ago myself. My eyes burned, but the more I blinked and listened to the two of them tease each other, the less it stung. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave kudos if you enjoy this story! Comments and kudos are what keep me motivated, in all honesty. haha


	7. Look

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMPORTANT ** I went back and edited the last couple chapters. I didn’t proofread it as much as I skimmed it due to available time. haha The only actual change to the story I did was change the beige bandanna Lila wore around her backpack to a scrap of red cloth. The story may seem slow right now, but expect everything to pick up in the next two chapters. Chapter 9 will change the feel of this story, for sure. 
> 
> Something I want to bring up to you guys: I felt so stuck during this chapter. haha I know what kind of relationship I /want/ Lila to have, but these characters are so hard to get close to without writing actual interactions with one another. Trust me, everything will go a lot faster once I get past this stage of “getting to know” with everyone.

Before I know it, it’s been three days since my first official day at this farm, and life consists of the same routine.

 

Wake up right before the watch shift changes. Eat breakfast at the top of the camper with Sophia. Walk around the farm and help people with mundane chores. Bring lunch to Carl and Daryl, banter with Daryl about how he needed to catch up with the trends on headbands. Hang out with Carl and Sophia in Carl’s room. Pass dinner out to Carl and Daryl, wake Daryl up from his mid-day nap that always interfered with dinner. Hang out with Carl and Sophia in Carl’s room until nighttime. Go back to the RV’s roof to sleep at the feet of whoever was on watch. Repeat.

 

Only two changes happened to the otherwise solid schedule. Either when Sophia was out with her mother after dinner, or I had to help out with making dinner. Carl’s parents would say “good morning” and “goodnight” to their son. They occasionally checked in during the day, but not always. Carol came during those times to check on her daughter, but would also go down the hall towards Daryl’s room. 

 

Sophia would immediately go after her, causing some sort of distraction or another to get her mother away. Carl and I speculated behind her back that she didn’t like the idea of them together. But today, Carl offered up some more substantial reasons why she didn’t. 

 

“Sophia’s dad was a bad guy,” he tells me today, the third day, as we try to build a house of cards on the floor of his room. He’s healed incredibly fast these last few days, and was going to be able to go out of the house tomorrow. Sophia has been out of the room for a total of five minutes before he started talking. “He wasn’t nice to her and her mom. She thinks it’s better if it stays just her mom and her for awhile, that it’s better.”

 

“What do you mean?” I ask, briefly looking across to him. We’re on the third level of our house, and it looks amazing. If I had a camera, I would take a picture of it, even though it was still a little unfinished. The three of us had been working on it since lunch. The smell of dinner was coming from downstairs, another combined effort between the two groups. I didn't fit with either, but I tried to play it politely on both ends. No one had asked me to help today. They never forced me to say “yes” when they did ask, but what else could I say? 

 

“Well,” Carl starts, ready to say something heavy-loaded by his tone of voice. “I saw her dad punch Carol in the face back in the mountains.” I feel my jaw drop, not expecting such a sentence. Sounded so barbaric. 

 

Carl continues, angling a card just right on our delicate creation. “He did it a lot, sometimes in front of other people, but no one really did anything to stop it. One day, when a lot of women in our group were doing laundry, he slapped her, and some of them tried to step in to stop it, but he started pushing on them, too. He was a bully.” Carl finishes placing the card, and I go to place my own.

 

“Shane came over, though. He stopped the whole thing, and punched Ed right in the face. A bunch of times. A lot. Like, a lot of times. He told him never to touch Carol or Sophia, or anyone in the group, ever again. It was so cool.” Carl hero-worshiped Shane, and it felt strange. The only side I ever saw of the man was this G.I. Joe soldier persona. I tended to avoid him and Andrea since our first encounter, knowing their stance on me being here. I didn’t know how everyone felt about me staying here, but I knew enough to guess on it. Those two definitely did not.

 

“Ed stayed in his tent that night, and that was also the night when walkers came into our camp. They got Amy, Andrea’s sister, first. And then they got half of everyone from there, including Ed while he was in the tent. My dad, Daryl, T-Dogg, and Glenn had gone back to the city, trying to find Daryl’s brother that got left behind on the last run. They found his hand, but not him. Shane and the other guys took down the walkers, but my dad came back in the middle of it, and they finished it off together. We lost a lot of good people, in what was no time. Jim turned out to be bit, and we lost him later. I never saw someone get sick after they got bit. I had thought it was better than being eaten all at once, but I don’t think that anymore.” Carl’s staring at a chip in the floorboards, no longer looking at my hands placing multiple cards on top of others. 

 

Sophia and her mom’s footsteps come down the hallway and down the stairs. The chirp of Sophia’s voice was muffled and muddled from behind the closed door Carl and I sat in. Seems as though Sophia was going to be with her mom for a bit today. I was glad to know that Carl and I wouldn’t be interrupted in our conversation.

 

“We went to the CDC afterwards, trying to find a safe place to stay.” Carl moves, shaking from his earlier stupor, and placing more cards on our house. It’s coming together nicely, almost there. I listen and watch his hands, like he did mine, as he tells me about what happened once they finally got there. I listen to every detail he gives, even as he tells me the minor details about how he had his first taste of wine and thought it was gross. He tells me about the man that was there, and how he doesn’t remember his name, but he remembers everything he said. 

 

The man at the CDC showed them a time-lapse MRI video on a volunteer that was infected. The volunteer was the man’s wife. In the video, the woman’s brain had bright and sparkling lights, things that made her who she was. After awhile, her brain started flickering, and then going completely blank. But something started to wake the brain back up, right by the spinal cord. Brain activity started up again, reanimating the body to basic functions. There were black specks in places of her brain that weren’t there before, and none of the lights came back on. She wasn’t the same person she was anymore. Carl tells me, as he places his last card on the level we were on, that she was just a body, and none of her life was left in the body on the screen.

 

Carl gets twitchy as he tells me more about what happened at the end of their stay at the CDC. The generators ran out of fuel. The entire building was going to explode as some emergency protocol to destroy all the diseases in it, as some sort of “fail-safe.” Carl said it had sounded like a movie, but too real at the same time. The man had locked everyone inside, had told them it was for the best, that it would be painless and within seconds when the bomb went off. It took almost the entire countdown for the man to see sense, Carl’s dad finally persuading him to let everyone go. A woman named Jacqui had stayed behind, finding peace in the painlessness of the fail-safe. Everyone ducked in the cars when it went off. Carl says he still has never been held tighter in his mom’s arms. He almost jokes that the only reason she hasn’t now is because his wound is too tender for her to, but he only gets quieter after that. I never saw Carl so despondent. 

 

I don’t know what to say after all the new information, so I go with whatever first comes to mind, picking up a card and finishing the top of our house.

 

“I never thought the walkers remembered who they were before they died,” I start, and Carl looks up at me. Might as well finish. “I had always thought they were dead and gone, that their body was the only thing left. I think it’s pretty obvious that it must be something wrong with the brain because it’s the only way to take them down. That something was making people move around, but not act like themselves. I’ll never be able to figure it all out myself, but I used to work in a lab with blood a lot before this all started. Not a Phlebotomist, but I used to be that, too. I worked in recent it was mostly how the blood looked, but I know beyond just how blood looks on walls. I started guessing it might be something in their blood that was causing all this. Why else was it so easy to turn from a bite? Saliva and blood have a lot of the same biomarkers.” Carl doesn’t move to place anymore cards on the house, so I focus my hands and eyes on the project. My words still come out.

 

“I went around killing every roamer I could, pushing my limits at some points. I never even shot a gun before, but I learned how, figuring it would save my life faster than anything else. I started trying to learn about them, how they reacted to certain stimulus. They were diseased. And diseases can travel in the blood. Ever heard of Cat Scratch Fever? A cat can get infected from a flea and contract Bartonella, carrying it around with them for short time without really noticing. But if a cat scratched a person in the time they had it, the person gets sick. Everything is transferred somehow.”

 

“I don’t know how it happened specifically, but I can only bet it’s in the blood. A vaccine could maybe solve the problem, but we might not ever know. I didn’t think people were working on finding a cure, but I know for sure now. It’ll be awhile, if ever, there comes one. There’s only one way to survive in this world: kill whoever comes to hurt you.” I placed the last card on the house, and slowly back away. I looked up at Carl and immediately made eye contact with him. He was staring at me with a weird expression. Like he was a sponge and trying to soak in every word I was saying.

 

“I’m sorry,” I rush, completely forgetting that he was just a twelve year old boy. “That’s a little too much information for you, you’re still just a kid and —“ Carl cuts me off.

 

“I’m not just a kid,” he says, bitterness in his voice. He looks away from me, his narrowed eyes now looking at the cards. “I’ve seen what the world is now. I know it’s not what it used to be. What you’re saying, I understand it, I do.”

 

I stayed quiet, contemplating his words. Like Sophia, they didn’t like being referred to as “just a kid.” But they were kids, even if they didn’t feel like it. The world changed, and therefore the normalcy of what kids were and weren’t allowed to do changed, too. They wanted to know how to kill walkers, but I didn’t have any right to teach them that. This wasn’t a game of cards, or a magic trick, this was life or death. I couldn’t put that much pressure on myself. Not yet. I couldn’t put another life in my hands. Bringing Sophia back to her group was one thing — it was like when Lori and Carol asked me to help with dinner, I couldn’t exactly deny doing what was obviously the more appropriate response in helping a lost girl find her mom and helping people that needed an extra hand who were giving you a place to stay and food for free. Sleeping on the RV’s roof with a pillow was a lot better than sleeping in a tree.

 

Carl speaks again, changing the topic, and I feel relieved.

 

“I really like the way things turned out,” he says, examining the flimsy stack of a home. “I don’t want it to fall apart.” I try not to read too deeply into his words after our heavy discussion just before, but it happens anyway. He gives me a look, and although I could recognize it, I choose not to. I add to the sentiment.

 

“Even if it does, we can always try it again. Maybe even a better one.” I shrug. 

 

Carl continues to look at me, but doesn’t say anything. I smile, and he smiles back. I feel like I won something, even though I can’t see it.

 

It’s in that moment that the door swishes open, Sophia beaming at us as she cradles a jar in her hands. The house of cards Carl and I had just finished collapses to the floor, the scuffling of the paper spreading around us like a spill.

 

Sophia’s once bright smile drops almost as fast as the house, regret washing all over her features. Carl and I stare at the once beautifully balanced cards all around us. I feel a little disappointed, but understood that things like that would never last. Carl’s crestfallen face swims into my vision as I look from him to Sophia. He turns, angry at her barging in, but I trample over his bitter words with my laugh.

 

He turns to me, confused and still red in the face. Sophia looks like she wants to be anywhere but here.

 

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin everything.” she says in complete sincerity. She guiltily fiddles with the jar in her hands, a faint trace of fear in her eyes. I remember what Carl told me about her father and feel sickness twist in my stomach.

 

“You should be.” Carl grits, but I quickly come after him with my own words.

 

“It’s okay. You didn’t mean to. Nothing’s ruined. We can do it again. Everything’s fine.” I gushed it out, already picking the cards back together in one stack. Carl followed suit, a small pout to his frowning lips.

 

Sophia comes sulkily towards us, leaving the door open and placing the jar with a blue ribbon around it by her side as she helps us. My eyes keep getting drawn to it as we continue pulling our cards together. I wonder what could be inside. We have the cards stacked together in no time. Carl finally notices the jar, having calmed down his frustrations. 

 

“What’s that?” He asks.

 

Sophia looks confused before looking to where his eyes are focused. Her face morphs into a torn expression. Excitement and guilt and weariness. “Oh, Beth and Patricia gave us jerky. I never had it before, and I came up to eat it with you guys.” She looks at Carl from under her lashes, trying to force a smile.

 

Carl snorts, returning the lopsided smile she gives with a real one. “You’ve been missin’ out, Sophia. It’s awesome.”

 

Sophia’s shoulders slacken, looking between Carl and I. Nodding my head at her and smiling, I reached for the jar and twist it open. The smell of peppered beef jerky spreads into the room, and I can’t help the happy noise that comes out of my mouth.

  
“It smells good,” Sophia notes, peering into the jar as I hold it out to them for first dibs. “Doesn’t look like it, though.” 

 

“Let’s try it together,” Carl says, waiting for me to get a piece. I lay the jar beside the cards and hold my share out. We tap our servings and take a unison bite. 

 

It’s silent in the room as we all chew and stare down at the left over bites we hold. The jerky is so good, I take another bite as soon as I gulp down the first. Sophia finishes hers, looking at us before looking back down at the jar in front of her.

 

“How’d it taste?” Carl asks between his mouthful. Sophia smiles, a happiness showing in her that must come from her core.

 

“I don’t like it,” she admits, contradicting her face. “My mouth is as dry as the desert now.”

 

“Then why’re you smiling?” Carl says after he swallows, picking another piece. I reach for a third, just listening.

 

Sophia gets back up to her feet, dusting her knees off. “I tried something new today. I’ve been getting to do a lot of that lately.” She steps back out of the room, the door still open from earlier. We can hear her footsteps descending and mingling with the sounds of pans downstairs.

 

Carl shakes his head after her, getting up from his position on the floor as well. He cleans his fingers off with his pajama bottoms, stepping towards the bathroom behind him. “I’ll be back,” he says. I nod, deciding on what I can do next. Maybe set up another game? I hear a cough, but it’s not from Carl. Hm, I could do that.

 

“Me, too,” I say, picking the jar up and taking it with me out of the room and towards the one farther down the hall. The door is halfway open, but another one inside is just now opening.

 

“Hello,” I say, watching as Daryl comes walking out of bathroom. He can walk in straight lines now and could probably take the bandage around his head off any day now. He walks towards the bed, huffing a contented sigh as wiggles deeper in the bed. He gives me a scrutinizing look.

 

“What’cha want?” He asks so eloquently. I snort, offering the open jar to him. 

 

“Actually, I was wondering if you wanted some.” I reply, not really sure what to do with Daryl beyond repeating back what he says. I had taken lessons in relearning how to talk to others from two children that everyone cared for. They could get away with things that I couldn’t if I didn’t start interacting with more adults. I needed to remember who I was, but it was hard when every person I met from now on only focused on one thing: survival. There wasn’t room to talk about anything else. The kids were different. They were still pure, as much as you could be in a time like this. It was refreshing. It calmed me from the count that I still hadn’t gotten to do these last few days.

 

“’S good,” Daryl mumbles between a large bite. I nod, using a tissue from a tissue box to place more for him. I closed the cap on the jar and handed him the napkin. He rested it on his lap.

 

“Sophia never tried it before, but she did today.” I said, leaning against the door frame with my arms crossed. I’ll try and work into new ground today, instead of bringing up injuries. Today, I actually could talk about something else.

 

“And?” He asks from the side of his mouth, chewing hard. I shrug.

 

“She didn’t like it. Said it made her mouth a desert. But she was happy to try it, nonetheless.” Daryl nods, looking around at everything but me. That was different. He usually kept his attention solely on me. Trust issues with a new person in his space, no doubt.

 

“She likes fruity things.” He states, as though it was obvious to begin with. I smile, remembering a fact.

 

“Well, her favorite food is ‘any and all types of fruit snacks,’ so I guess I should have expected that,” I say, and he looks back at me. His eyes go down for a brief moment, right by my arms, before he turns away, looking out the open window. I look down at my arms, expecting to see something on them, but don’t see anything. My tank top was pushed a little farther down, and my crossed arms didn’t help in keeping my actual chest to stay covered, but that didn’t bother me like it might have before the world went down. Daryl wasn’t interested in that anyway, was he?

Was he?

 

I fidget, pulling my tank top up, not expecting the sudden thought. There was no doubt that people didn’t stop being interested in _that_. I was just hoping I wouldn’t have a problem here about it. I only stumbled across two groups in my time by myself. The first was a family with three children. The second was a man and two teenage daughters. Later, the same man by himself, at a convenience store. I saw plenty of groups or solo people from a far, but I would avoid them completely when I could. You couldn’t trust every one in the world before, but especially in the world it was now.

 

Daryl notices my fidgeting and looks at me. 

 

“What’re you movin’ around for?” He gives me a weird look and I feel stupid. Maybe _I_ was the one making him uncomfortable with my shirt and he looked away. Gosh, how stupid.

 

“Nothin’, just remembered I should help with dinner and didn’t know if I should go down now or not.” My lie was quick and easy, as I experienced the same feeling yesterday evening. I was unsure of going down by myself to help out, but Carol ended up coming up and asking for my help anyway. Despite this being a good lie given the real exposure to the situation, Daryl gave me a doubtful look. He saw through it, but didn’t call me out on it.

 

“Better go on with it, then,” and he turned his back to me, throwing a now balled up napkin across the room. It landed perfectly in the bin. He didn’t turn around to see my impressed expression, but he didn’t need to, it seemed. He did it for the convenience and not to show off. 

 

“Yeah,” I say, stepping out and leaving the door open a crack. I go back to Carl’s room. There’s a game of “Go Fish” laid out and I smile at him. He smiles back, and we begin to play.

 

The game is over and we’re dicing out the cards for another when Sophia knocks on the door. “Dinner’s ready.”

 

I help carry the food up to Carl and Daryl. But as I reach for Daryl’s plate, Carol swoops in and grasps it between her hands. 

 

She smiles at me. “I got it, thanks.” 

 

I don’t know what to do with my outstretched hand, so I awkwardly pat the counter where the plate once was. “Okay.” I give a forced smile, not understanding the abruptness of the gesture. 

 

“Okay,” she repeats, hurrying up the stairs. Sophia watches her mom go before turning to look at me. I look back, questioning. She shrugs.

 

“I don’t know,” she says as we walk up the stairs. She dumps both the plates she was holding on the bed, going down to Daryl’s room where Carol is in. Carl takes the plate that looks the most appetizing and pats beside him.

 

“Eat with me while Sophia bugs them,” I chuckle a little, sitting with him. The door is still open, but I expect Sophia to come back soon anyway. We end up talking about a movie he wanted to see but didn’t get to. I saw it in theaters a week before everything went to hell, and he stays quiet and infatuated over my every word. I’m not even fifteen minutes into the story, but I feel important as he almost misses his fork to his mouth when he doesn’t take his eyes off me during a retelling of a particularly intense opening scene. We’re both laughing as I wipe his cheek off with a tissue. His dad walks in at that moment.

 

“Carl,” Rick says, smiling at his son. “Lila,” he acknowledges me, nodding. He’s holding a woven basket of apples.

 

“Dad!” Carl exclaims, happy to see him, too. I lean back, not sure what to do. I haven’t been in the room with either of Carl’s parents without Sophia also present. She made for a good distraction from whatever they talked about. 

“How’re you feeling?” Rick asks his son, and I decide looking down at my still full plate of food is the best option in this case.

 

“Good,” Carl chirps, basking in the attention of his father as his dad puts his hand on his shoulder gently. “My side feels a lot better today, even more than yesterday. Lila and Sophia have been keeping me company all day, too. We’re talking about movies right now. Sophia’s doing something with her mom, but Lila and I are okay by ourselves.”

 

I look up from my plate, and see both of the Grimes looking at me with different expressions. Carl looks content with his choice of company, but Rick looks questioning, accessing. I nod my head, assuring that we are okay. I’m a complete stranger to these people and hang out with their children. I probably was giving myself a bad impression.

 

“I don’t doubt that. I could hear you laughing all the way from downstairs these last few days.” Rick pats his son’s shoulder before placing the basket down on his nightstand. “I came up to see how you’re doing, but also to give you these. Beth and Jimmy picked them off the trees today. There’s a lot more, but they wanted you to have these.” Carl’s smile is so bright, it warms my insides.

 

“Really?” He asks, the kindness of the others surprising him.

 

“Really,” Rick states, smiling down with nothing but love to his son. I look back down at my plate.

 

“Thanks, Dad,” Carl hugs his dad’s middle. “Can you tell Beth and Jimmy I said thanks to them, too?”

 

“Of course,” Rick returns the hug. He gives me a nod before leaving the room, and as he does, Sophia comes in.

 

“Hi, Mr. Grimes!” She greets, surprised to see him. I can see Carol walking past the door behind them, and her face looks conflicted. It’s only a brief glance, but I mewl over it as Sophia and Rick share a conversation with Carl pitching in every now and then. Did Sophia say something to her mom? Did she drop some kind of hint at her over her displeasure in Daryl and her’s relationship? I wonder…

 

“This is amazing,” Sophia says, drawing my attention back in. She’s staring at the apples Rick brought in, and I hum in agreement to make it seem like I was listening the entire time. 

 

“Yes. Yes, they are. And I hope you both enjoy them _after_ dinner.” Rick says, almost warningly. I smile a little, remembering the times I heard that tone of voice from my own father.

 

“What about Lila?” Sophia asks, honestly curious. She tilts her head to the side. “She’s one of us, too. Does that mean she can’t eat one before finishing, either?” I open my mouth when their eyes swerve to me, not sure on what to say but not wanting to stay quiet. Sophia didn’t need to say that. I didn’t need to hear the disapproval from Rick about me being called one of them. I was just a guest. I was Hershel’s guest almost as much as Rick’s. I —

 

“Of course,” Rick says, and I can’t tell what his expression is betraying, but it’s not all bad, if I take a guess. “But she’s not a kid. She knows this already.” With that, he steps out of the room and closes the door behind him. I’m not sure what his statement meant exactly. 

 

“See, Lila!” Sophia proclaims, skipping over to me. “You’re one of us.” She looks so smug.

 

“Sophia, I didn’t need you to do that. Rick said what he did because he had to find a way out without hurting any feelings.” 

 

“No, but you are.” Carl pipes in. I look over to him, then back at Sophia, baffled by this sudden turn in our daily activities. No one said anything about being apart of anyone’s group, did they?

 

“We see the way you look when you’re with the others. You don’t look them in the eye. We’re not dumb. You hang out with us because you don’t want to mess up around the others. You think we’re not smart, but we can tell when someone’s avoiding something. We do that with chores. Well, I do.” Sophia gives Carl a meaningful look, and he crosses his arms, petulant.

 

They watched me this entire time? These kids were acting older than they were. But I genuinely liked their company. I wasn’t using them. Sophia continues, my mind reeling back in. “Except you don’t, you actually help people with stuff when they ask. Carl and I tell our parents about you everyday. They like you. Not pretending to, like they did the first day, but because they see who you are. You help us. And it matters to us. It matters to them.”

 

I adjust my weight between my legs, taking a deep breath, but not sure where to begin. After a pause, I find my words. “I’m not sure what you want me to say, Sophia… Carl. I’m not using you guys to avoid anybody. I like being with you two. I just.. I don’t really belong with anyone. I can handle being by myself out there. I don’t need a group.”

 

Carl scowls, sitting up straighter and uncrossing his arms. “Then why don’t you leave?” I frown, taken back by his outburst. Sophia looks like a kicked puppy.

 

“Because I need to make sure you’re all alright.” It was the first excuse I could come up with. I did want them to be alright, but it was obvious they were. I wasn’t sure about the Hershel and Rick dispute on leaving after Carl was healed up, but I knew they would figure out some type of deal in the end. They would be fine. I just couldn’t figure out a good way to bring up giving me back my weapons to Rick. Maybe I could do that today, after what Sophia just did? This would be as good of a time as any. Which was is to say, not that good.

 

“And how will you go from there?” Sophia asks this time, her fists clenched. 

 

“I’ll finish my count. And then the rest will come after.” Sophia clenches her jaw, but Carl speaks up this time.

 

“You can do that with us. You can help protect us, teach us.” Carl urges, and I feel my resolve give in a little. I could, but this group had its flaws. A tiny voice in the back of head told me that this was as good of a group that I could get, as good of a place that I could ever stay in, but I tried to focus on the logical side of my mind. That tiny voice only grew louder when I did.

 

Sophia noticed the opening, and took it. “You can patrol around the farm. Take down walkers and be by yourself. You can come back and be with us when you’re done. You can fit in. You do fit in, you just don’t see it. You’re just not trying.”                                                                         

 

“I am trying,” I say as quietly to myself as I do to them. They stay silent. I feel like I’m a child, and they know what’s best for me. That’s not how this is supposed to work. I won’t let this be how it works. I’m not going to be told what’s good for me by children.

 

“I’ll talk to Rick. And I’ll see you guys tomorrow. Goodnight,” I grab my half empty plate and slide my way past Sophia’s form. I don’t shut the door behind me, forgotten in my rush.

 

As I walk down the stairs, I can hear Carl sarcastically say, “Well, there’s your answer.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

I help Beth, Patricia, and Lori with the dishes in the kitchen. From the point of the sink, I can see the sun already starting to set, and Rick sitting on the front porch, watching it. This was my shot.

 

“Hi,” I say as I lamely approach him. The screen door squeaks as I let it go. It shuts with a thump. I don’t make to sit beside him, but lean against one of the pillars on the porch across from him. The house reminded me of the Monroe’s, but more homely. Deanna and Reg were comely people, but their home contrasted from the welcoming presence they both shared. Spencer took after them in that sense. Aiden… he had his moments.

 

“Hello,” Rick greets back. He leans back from his slouched position. He leans back, crossing his legs in the way that’s only with his ankle touching the opposite knee, and appraises me. No time for beating around the bush, I guess.

  
“I think it’s been long enough for me to finally ask: when will I get my weapons back? I think I’ve overstayed my welcome here. I can’t go out without them, though. Tomorrow morning, I’ll be out of everyone’s hair and going about my business. It works out for everyone.” I feel like I did a pretty good job in getting my point heard.

 

Rick closes his eyes and sighs. He opens his mouth, closes it, and then opens it again, thinking better of it. “I thought about it.” He says, and I expect more to come, but nothing does.

 

“And what was your conclusion?” I say after a beat of silence. 

 

“I didn’t quite reach one. I figured we needed to talk more before anything was final.”

 

“Alright, let’s talk,” I say, and don’t wish to say anything else after. I just want to go. And then I don’t. I want to stay and _live_ , not leave and survive. I can’t make that decision by myself. I need permission. Something I haven’t had to have in a long time.

 

“Sophia’s told us everything you told her. It added up. But there’s still questions that aren’t answered, and in order for everyone at this farm to be safe, you need to answer them.” Rick’s voice reminded me of the type of people I used to work with. Authoritative, experienced, and calm but intimidating. They became that way from their job. He was a cop. I was an analyst. I spent my time studying patterns than demanding answers from others. 

 

“I’ll answer them,” I nod solemnly, trying to convey my seriousness. Rick looks away from me for a moment, taking in the sunset behind me. I can see it reflected in the glass of the windows behind him. The orange and pink reflect off the wood of the porch. I scuffle my shoe against it as he speaks, trying not to show my surprise.

 

“The amount of walkers you’ve killed… it makes me wonder how many people you killed.” He states, and my eye twitches.

 

“I don’t have a count for that,” I say, not intending to avoid the question but it seems like it. Rick looks back at me, attention in my face for any sign of a lie. 

 

“I reckon hitting the thousands wouldn’t be possible for both the living and dead, would it?” He asks, and there’s not much else I can say but to answer his question.

 

“One,” I state. He gives me an almost disbelieving look. One person after killing 1,542 walkers didn’t seem like a realistic number.

 

“Why?” He asks, a natural question to him. I look away, not wanting to see his face as I remember the man at the connivence store. With the gun in his hand, and the walkers coming towards us, everything went so fast. 

 

“He was gonna feed me to the walkers,” I state, watching the sunset in the corner of my eye as I see the horses being led to their stables by Hershel and Jimmy. “I wish I could say he was bit or something, but it wasn’t that easy. He had me at gunpoint. I had no weapons. We were surrounded. He shot at me, but missed. I took the chance, and got the gun. He came at me, but I did what he wouldn’t have done for me. I shot him so he wouldn’t come back. And I… I left with  my life.” I look back at Rick, and he takes his eyes off mine when we meet them. He looks down, reflecting on something. He’s thinking of something I don’t know the story about, but I wish I did. I wish I knew more so I could say the “right” answer to his questions. 

 

This wasn’t like  the times with Daryl and Sophia. I used their interactions to figure out my own to say to them. I  was going to need to start doing things my own way, learning things on my own again. Even if I stayed, I needed to present the person I was fully to people.

 

“I understand,” Rick finally releases. I take a deep breath, then release it. I shift my hips, feeling my knees locking. 

 

“You never stayed with any other groups?” He asks, and this was the kind of question I expected.

 

“No, I didn’t. I saw them before they saw me. I avoided them. I didn’t know if I could trust them. Your people saw me before I saw them, and I ended up passed out on the road with my head almost stomped on. Does that prove my reasons for not staying with any?” I don’t tell him about the family I stayed a night with. I don’t tell him about how I left them, only to find them a few days after still being eaten in their car. 

 

Rick hums, asking another question. “Beyond just having your weapons, why have you stayed this long to begin with?” 

 

I don’t know the answer to that question myself. Well, I suppose I do. Sophia didn’t want me to leave. Carl and Sophia both had faith in me being welcome in their group. And i couldn’t make up my mind on whether to stay or go.

 

“I don’t know the answer to that question myself,” I repeat my thoughts aloud. “Everything is good here. And in all honesty, this is probably the best I’m ever gonna get. But if I stay, I could ruin the semblance.”

 

Rick nods, uncrossing his legs and standing up. I close my eyes for a moment, just taking in the last few moments of still being blissfully in-between on staying or leaving. After his next words, I’ll either be packing my few belongings and going about my way, or staying here and building something with these people. Hershel and Rick would be able to form an understanding, surely. They were reasonable men.

 

Rick take my shoulder in his hand, surprising me. “You’ve been welcome to stay since Sophia begged us all to take you in. But now, it’s your decision on whether you should or not. I’ll talk to the others once you make your mind. Tell me in the morning, and I’ll return your weapons.” With that, he walks down the steps of the porch, going towards the many tents already filled with people. They’re far away, and I know they didn’t overhear our conversation.

 

I don’t want to keep second guessing my decisions with these other people, so on a whim, I open my mouth and call to Rick.

 

“I am.” I declare, swallowing dryly. He turns back to me. “Staying,” I add after a moment. “I don’t need the night. I just need you to know now.”

 

Rick looks me in the eye for a moment before smiling faintly and nodding. He turns back around, the soft smile still there. I sigh in relief.

 

I stay on the porch for a moment, seeing the last sliver of the sun go behind the tree line. It was time to sleep. As I take the first step down, the screen door opens, and I feel arms wrap around my middle. I look down and see the skinny and frail arms of Sophia.

 

“You won’t regret it,” she says, voice muffled in the middle of my back. I feel the leftover tension in my shoulders release, and I twist around, patting her head. 

 

“I won’t,” I say, meaning it. “But I gotta learn some things on my own.”

 

Sophia’s smile is huge as she nods. “Of course.”

 

I smile back, biting my bottom lip to contain the excitement. I was going to stay. I’ll start living, and not just surviving. The idea made me feel like that unanswered worry once I hit my goal number was finally resolved.

 

“Let’s go,” I say, wrapping an arm around her shoulder.

 

As we walk over to the flourish of tents, Sophia stops to pick up a flower budding from the grass. I turn around to look at her as she goes to pull it, and see something in my peripheral. A figure in an open window of the house.

 

I raise my head up to squint at who it was. Daryl is shutting the window and the curtain to his room, and my mind wonders for a moment. Could he have heard the conversation I had with Rick? I look back down and smile at Sophia as she walks back to me. A white daisy, or some type of flower with white petals and a yellow middle, is nestled in her hand.

 

“It's really pretty, isn’t it?” She says, smiling down at the flower. I give one last look at the house before turning in our original pursuit. I glance down at her flower, humming in agreement.

 

This was the beginning of something I wanted more than I knew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave kudos and comments if you're enjoying this story! I literally check everyday to see how well this story is being received. haha


	8. Hiding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End notes will have a kind of analysis on why I made Lila’s past occupation what it is. But I’ll use the rest of this one to say this chapter has 15,406 WORDS. I got tired of how long it was taking to finally move the story along and still have moderate length chapters, so I decided cramming everything into one big long chapter will make it a lot neater for what will happen next. Currently, we are on 02.06 of the tv series. The next few chapters will be longer, too. I need to make sure I add these crucial moments while I still can. haha

 

“Tag, you’re it!” Sophia’s voice rings out across the farm’s open land. Her short hair bouncing as she taps her open palm against Carl’s back, her other holding her doll, Eliza, securely to her chest. He groans in frustration as the chase quiets down. I start chuckling, but stop as Sophia starts to frantically run towards me with Carl determinedly on her heels. We run towards the house, but split our separate ways as we get too close. Beth and Jimmy are sitting on the porch, smiling at us. I barely have time to return the gesture when Carl gets a hair too close. 

 

I must make a silly face as Carl starts to laugh, bending over and leaning on his knees as he gasps for air. I slow down, worrying for his stitches. He has been able to roam around the farm for the last few days, and Sophia and I worked him up to playing more physical games since then. Today, we were trying out tag. 

 

“Gotcha!” Carl shouts, pushing me back a little as he taps me with both arms. I stumble back, surprised more so than actually forced from his sneak attack. I purse my lips and bolt after him as he sprints towards Sophia’s giggling position. She shrieks in excitement as I gain on them quickly with my longer legs. I bypass Carl to tap on Sophia, figuring he needs a break from too much chasing.

 

As Carl and I are running farther from Sophia, Lori calls Carl’s name from the camp’s base with all their tents. Everyone from Rick’s group are over there, eating breakfast. Carl and Sophia decided to spontaneously do a game of tag, and practically dragged me into it with them.

 

“Carl, get over here,” Lori admonishes. Carol comes from behind her, her hands full with a pan and spatula. “You, too, Sophia,” she says in a more gentler tone, raising her eyebrows meaningfully. 

 

Carl and Sophia sigh in resignation, and I bend down on one knee to tie my right boot’s laces. When I finish, I see the two of them waiting for me. I don’t hold back my surprise as Carl holds his hand out for me to take. I take his hand but pull myself up without his help, using my legs for support. We walk back to the circle of people scraping their forks against plates. 

 

Carl goes to sit with his parents, and Sophia sits close to her mom. I take the plate offered to me by T-Dogg, thanking him, and sit down between him and Daryl. Daryl got out of the house the same day as Carl. He’s been quiet, but from the way everyone was acting, this was a normal occurrence with him. Carol and him haven’t talked much, and I wondered if it was because the privacy of the house wasn’t there anymore, or if Sophia had finally gotten what she wanted. 

 

Daryl grunts as I accidentally bump my elbow into his. I look over at him, about to apologize, but he only scoots away from me. I wasn’t contaminated. He didn’t need to react like that. T-Dogg smirks, saying “that’s just him” with his expression, when I look at him questioningly. He shrugs back at me, and I try to figure out why Daryl acts so odd. He wasn’t weird, he was just… different. And it was interesting. I could figure out this group’s dynamic from the get go, but that was before Daryl came stumbling out of the woods covered in blood and dirt and getting a bullet grazing his temple. He didn’t seem like the self-sacrificial type, but when it came to Sophia, he put a lot on the line.

 

Rick finishes his last bite of food, looking around at everyone as he begins speaking. “Let’s go help with securin’ those fences after we’re all done here.”

 

“And finish folding all the laundry on the lines,” Lori adds, gesturing behind her where clotheslines string across the patch of trees surrounding us. I figure this is where the men and women separate to take care of their respective jobs.

 

“Alright, where are we getting our supplies?” Andrea asks, holding onto her green messenger bag. Her plate is being washed by Carol. 

 

“The baskets are inside the RV.” Lori states offhandedly, brushing some hair out of Carl’s eyes. He doesn’t fidget away, just lets her. 

 

“Not that, the planks for the fence,” Andrea says exasperated. I feel my eyebrows raise, but I relax them again once I see the others look up from their plates. Lori turns to Andrea, looking like she will say something, but Rick cuts in. 

 

“They’re with Hershel at the moment. We’ll meet him behind the house in ten.” Rick looks back at his wife, his eyes conveying something that I recognize as “we’ll talk about this later, not now.” I remember that look from the times Spencer and I would have an argument, or when we would go out on a date and his friends would be at the place we were to go, waiting for us already. Spencer and I went through a lot. Petty arguments were not excluded from some of the more common things we faced in our relationship.

 

“Can I go?” Carl pipes in, looking up at his dad. Rick pats his back, rubbing a comforting circle between his shoulder blades. “No, not yet. You’re still healing up.” 

 

“No, as watch. I can watch you guys’ backs. And Lila can come, too. She has good eyes. I’ve seen it. We’ve all seen it.” I feel the attention turned to me for a moment, and I avert my eyes, awkwardly looking around to find a distraction. 

 

Carl, Sophia, and I were out in the field playing catch with a leftover soup can two days ago. Everyone was bustling about, doing whatever odd job they had for the day, and were all outside. Dale was on watch. He yelled out “Walkers!” but I had already heard the thuds of two bodies against wood. They were up against the fence of the farm, almost toppling over it. They weren’t close to the kids and I, but they were reaching tirelessly towards us, wanting us.

 

It was, in some odd way, perfect timing for Rick to have given me my knives back the morning after our conversation on the porch. Guns were still a no-no to anyone that wasn’t on watch, but I felt better in knowing I had the most weapons on me than any one person at a time. With both my knives secured on my thighs now, I had easily pulled them out as I ran towards the walkers. Carl and Sophia were stumbling back, petrified in seeing walkers so close to what was such a safe haven for them. 

 

I had drove both my knives into the heads of the walkers as soon as I was close enough, their bodies going limp. I could finally put a “+2” in my count after so long without expanding on it. The adrenaline rush had left me feeling high as I cleaned my knives off on one of the slumped walker’s sweaters. Everything was fine.

 

By the time Rick, Shane, T-Dogg, Glenn, and Daryl were across the field, I was already done cleaning my knives and placing them back in my holsters. I turned around, a happy calmness setting in my bones.

 

“You took them out that fast?” Glenn had asked, panting for breath and surprised by my nonchalantness. I hummed an affirmation, digging into my back pocket to add to the count.

 

**_= 1,542_ **

_\+ 2_

**_= 1,544_ **

 

Since that day, people have acted more openly with me. They stopped giving me nods as greetings, and started to ask me how I was. I thought it was weird at first, but figured that it may be that they knew me better now. I learned a lot about everyone on a more personal level. Not everyone was as open about themselves, but I at least knew more basic things. Last names, clearer ethnicities (Glenn was Korean), and among other miscellaneous things. Glenn was a pizza boy before, Andrea was a civil rights attorney before. And T-Dogg had went around in his van to escort elderly people to a safer place. 

 

They saw me kill two walkers to help defend the group, and that must have changed something with them. They were less… guarded. Well, most of them. Shane still gave me suspicious looks, and Daryl seemed to have gone back in our conversation progress and only talk to me in grunts or hums anymore.

 

“I suppose that could work,” Rick finally coincides, and I can see Sophia opening her mouth to say something, but Carol bumps her knee into hers, frowning as she purses her lips at Sophia. Sophia bows her head, her bottom lip protruding slightly.

 

“Rick,” Lori grits out, and I remember the way Carl had talked to me through clenched teeth not long ago. So, that’s where he got it. 

 

“Lori,” Rick says, raising both his eyebrows, as if a challenge. He wasn’t going to talk about this here. There was still a lot to say between them, but they kept quiet in front of the rest of the group. I always felt uncomfortable during these times. We needed more privacy in this camp. I knew this group put up a front at times, but anyone could see through it. Something was bubbling under the surface. Too much to pinpoint an exact spot. To me, it seemed as though half the group had something they were trying to keep from each other. The kids knew a lot of stuff, but even they couldn’t notice what I was could see. It was too adult for them, no matter what argument they would bring up.

 

A quick glance at my watch tells me it’s been ten minutes, so I rise from my spacious log to go clean my dish. I found out that they used a bucket of soapy water and a washcloth to clean the dishes. I have taken to getting my dish cleaned as fast as possible before anybody dumped their dishes off on me. I didn’t mind it at first, figuring I needed to earn my keep in someway, anyway. But soon, even Carol and Lori were giving me their dishes. I wasn’t a dishwasher. 

 

Dale takes up watch, succeeding Glenn from the night before, and all the men beyond those two go to help with the fences. Andrea leads the pack, eager to get a hammer and nails in her hands, while Carl and I tag alone in the back. Daryl is in front of us, with everyone else lined up together in some line in the middle. 

 

“You think we’re gonna finish around the fences today?” Carl asks me, looking up from under his Sheriff’s hat. I shake my head, looking around us and the expansive amount of land.

 

“No, too much to cover. Unless we split, but even then, too much to cover.” Carl nods once, understanding.

 

“Have you ever done something like this before?” He asks now, and I chuckle.

 

“Thought you only wanted me to come along to watch your back as you do all the work, bud.” I push the hat further down into his eyes, and he scoffs a laugh as he tries to fix it.

 

“I can’t do it all by myself. I’ve never done this before, either.” I shrug, still smiling at him.

 

“I had done some repairs around my apartment. Nothing fancy.” Spencer had done all the repairs for me back then. He was gone now. Carl looks from me, to Daryl’s back where his crossbow bounces slightly.

 

“Daryl, have you ever fixed any fences?”

 

Daryl turns his head around, looking from Carl to me before turning back around. He falls back a little, slowing his walk. He’s almost beside Carl, but still a few steps ahead.

 

“A couple times,” he divulges. Carl runs with it.

 

“You were a handyman?” He asks, interest piqued. I gave Daryl a once over, trying to imagine the sleeveless redneck with a utility belt and yellow helmet. No, that didn’t fit right.

 

“No,” Daryl says flatly. He doesn’t add on, and Carl lowers his shoulders in defeat. I chuckle, and Daryl turns his head to me, giving me a dubious look.

 

“Whatcha laughing for?” He questions, almost threateningly. I don’t wipe the grin off my face.

 

“A yellow helmet wouldn’t fit you,” I say instead, and Carl looks back up at Daryl before giggling himself, covering his mouth as he turns his head away. It wouldn’t look bad on him, but it wouldn’t fit who he was. Daryl squints his eyes at me, a challenging look in his eye.

 

“And I bet you think ya’d look just fine with one, wouldn’ ya?” He asks, and I feel my grin widen a  little more. He wasn’t just grunting anymore.

 

“I don’t know. Carl, would I?” Carl looks up at me, then Daryl, and back at me. 

 

“A lot better than Daryl.” Daryl scoffs, a wheezy noise coming out that could have been a very, very short laugh. I take it as a win. I’ll understand him better if I keep it up.

 

“We’re here to help,” Rick’s voice comes from the front, addressing an overall’d Hershel with a straw hat on his head. He’s missing the wheat stem that farmer’s typically chew on.

 

“I don’t remember asking for any.” Hershel replies, trying to lift a red pallet from an entire shed full of them. He must have used to deliver crops out of the farm with them.

 

“You didn’t need to.” Rick counters, both his hands are loosely on his hips, and he’s squinting from the sun, looking around at the farm’s fences. I put a hand up to my eyes, trying to block the sun. Wish I had a hat like Carl’s or Hershel’s. Hell, even Daryl’s imaginary yellow one.

 

Hershel throws the pallet up to the back of his blue truck. He’s panting from the maneuver. He was an older man, and shouldn’t be doing all this heavy lifting. I see Jimmy come from the shed, holding another red pallet and also struggling to lift it into the truck. They needed the help if they wanted these fences secure. It was a lot of work for just two people. I had thanked Hershel already for his kindness in treating my head, but I wanted to make it up in some way to him. This was actually a decent way.

 

“We got cars. We can spread out and get more done faster.” Rick’s argument was sound. It was logical.

 

Hershel remains silent, but doesn’t go to pick another pallet up. Rick takes that as his answer.

  
“Shane, T-Dogg, get the cars,” he gives, nodding his head to the side the two men were on. They nod and walk back across the field, towards the cars.

 

“You got any more vehicles?” Rick asks, gesturing towards the blue truck. Something flickers in Hershel’s eyes, and he frowns.

 

“This was Otis’,” he starts. “I have my own SUV. Jimmy, be a dear…” He trails, motioning towards the front of the house. This was the second time I heard about this Otis, and I made my own assumptions. Hershel and his family knew him, and everyone in Rick’s group looked guilty and awkward when he was brought up. Something happened. I look towards Carl, thinking maybe he also doesn’t know, and maybe he could ask, but he looks sad and frustrated. I avert my eyes from him, not wanting him to notice.

 

Rick and Hershel begin planning out how to take up the fence work, and Carl and I kick a rock back and forth. We get Daryl in on the game, but Andrea raises a hand in absence when Carl gestures to join. She wanders to stand near the two men as they talked. I didn’t want to dislike anyone in this new group I was in, so I didn’t. But I would admit that Andrea didn’t sit right with me. Neither did Shane. Rick was the “leader” of the group, but they found ways to undermine him in ways. Little things, but the entire group also notices. Maybe I was still bitter about our first encounter on the highway, but I wasn’t going to seek their company out anytime soon.

 

The three of us lose the rock in the overgrown grass, but we continue our game with a stray can. I feel like we’re from the 1940s, and it puts a small smile on my face we continue kicking it in a triangle between us. 

 

The three men come back with the cars at almost the same time, and we start to unload the pallets into each of the respective cars. Otis’ truck holds the most, but only three people can sit in the front. T-Dogg, Andrea, and Jimmy go in that truck towards the back fence where the most work needs to be done. Rick, Hershel, and Shane go in Hershel’s SUV to the right side of the land, where apparently a plank is broken. Daryl, Carl, and I drive to the left fence in Carol’s Cherokee. The front is in the best view of the person on watch, so we don’t set it as much of a priority. 

 

Daryl takes the keys from T-Dogg, and we’re off. My watch reads 8:43am once we get to the fences.

 

Carl spends about 4 minutes trying to lift a plank by himself while Daryl and I watch. We give each other a glance before helping him in lifting the hefty weight all together. It goes unspoken that Carl will be on watch while Daryl and I drag the planks out one by one, lining them up where we will place them. The entire stack is lifted from the roof and the trunk, and it just barely covers our half. We space them out a little, leaving a few inches between the planks.

 

As Daryl and I work on hammering in wood together, Carl begins a series of asking Daryl questions on what he did before the outbreak. Daryl does nothing more than give one-worded replies for a few questions before he stops mid hit on a nail. I keep my hold on the pallet as I look up from the protruding nail and look at him, eyebrows raised in question.

 

He gives me a glance before turning to Carl, wiping sweat from his brow. It was especially hot today. I hadn’t changed my clothes since the first day Maggie me handed new ones, for which I was glad. The weather was changing. Fall was in and out, some days hot and some days chilly. I would need to start wearing my jacket all over again. “What does it all matter?”

 

Carl purses his lips, shrugging. “Something to talk about.” Daryl gives Carl a blank look before hammering the nail back in.

 

“Why don’t you ask her about what she did, then?” He points his hammer at but doesn’t look at me as he squats down to hammer in a bottom nail. The _wak wak_ of the hammer hitting the nail resumes, echoing in the air. Carl gives me a contemplative look.

 

“Something with blood, right?” He asks me, and I hum an affirmation. Daryl finishes with the nail, but hesitates as he looks over at me. I don’t look at him as I go to help with picking up another pallet. He follows along, using his shirt to wipe sweat from his upper lip.

 

“But not a Phlebotomist,” I nod again, and want to ask if he even knows what one is, but decide he’ll ask if he didn’t.

 

“ _Criminal_?” Daryl offers exaggeratedly, a smirk turning a side of his open mouth up a little on the right. I squint at him, but not at the suggestion. I really couldn’t see, and neither could Daryl. Carl’s hat looked really promising at the moment.

 

“No,” I say, a little amused. Carl moves a little closer to us, and I take my chance, snagging the hat off his head. He doesn’t protest, but does lift both his hands to shield his eyes, looking at me.

 

“Cop?” He asks, moving his head to gesture at the sheriff’s hat now on my head. I grin, winking at him as I recount the theory. “Nope.”

 

Daryl picks another nail from his back pocket. “Something with math? You keep track of all walkers you’ve been takin’ out.” I shake my head. 

 

“Not necessarily. I was in a lab, remember?” Carl’s eyes light up in comprehension. 

 

“Scientist!”

 

“No, not even close,” I say back, diminishing his excitement.

 

We stay quiet as Carl contemplates another idea, but I decide that they probably wouldn’t be able to guess it. It wasn’t a totally obscure job, but not even a lot of people from before had heard much about it. There was that one tv show about the murderer, but Daryl didn’t look like he would have watched a lot of television, and Carl was too young for that show.

 

“Blood spatter,” I say, breaking the thoughtful silence behind the hammering. “I didn’t solve crimes or anything. Blood is used mostly for typing and DNA analysis. It can help with weapon recovery, victim discovery, or suspect tracking. I didn’t follow any of the leads, I just documented everything I could process, then gave it the police in a report. They decided what was useful or not.”

 

They’re both quiet for a moment before I hear Carl breathe an impressed, “ _That’s so cool._ ”

 

I feel a little smug, but squash it down. That was in the past. What use was my past occupation good for now? The entire world was covered in blood. “What your dad did must have been a lot cooler.” I tap the rim of the hat on my head. “I also was just a sub department of an entire forensics team. I stayed in a room playing with blood most days. Taking down walkers doesn’t disturb me as much as another person, I guess.” 

 

Carl nods his head enthusiastically. “And that’s _awesome_.”

 

Daryl turns to Carl, and I realize he’s been staring at me this entire time, not even using the hammer. “Hey, kid, enjoy the forehead kisses from your mama while you can,” he says warningly, and Carl scrunches his face.

“Whatever,” he responds, and I realize that Carl is growing up even before my own eyes. I haven’t known him nearly as long as everyone else, but the time we spend together almost makes up for it. 

 

It’s been hours after our conversation on occupations when Carol comes walking towards us from the house. She’s holding a plastic sack and smiling down at the ground to block the sun from her eyes. In the time after our conversation, we three talked about nothing meaningful. Carl did the most talking, retelling the stories he read in his comics to Daryl. I had already heard them, but enjoyed hearing them again, noticing different things I hadn’t before.

 

“Workin’ hard, I see?” Carol says, and I don’t know which one of us she’s talking about. All three, possibly? 

 

“Yup,” Daryl answers, not looking at her as he and I finish the last nail in the pallet. We’re a little more than a third of the way across the fence, and I figure it’s time for lunch once Carol hands the plastic sack to Carl. 

 

“The others are about where you guys are at with the fences,” she notes, a hand on the back of her hip and another shielding the sun from her eyes. I remember how I’m still wearing Carl’s hat, and feel a little bad. I should give it back.

 

Daryl and I finish off nailing the pallet down, and I walk a few steps toward Carl who is rummaging through the sack. I place his hat back on, and he looks up, smiling at the return.

 

“‘Bout time. That hat didn’t _fit_ you,” Daryl mocks, reusing my words against his handyman yellow hat. My face cracks in a surprised smile. He walks over to us, and Carl passes out the foul-wrapped sandwiches and carrots that was our lunch. Three water bottles were settled at the bottom of the bag.

 

I look up to give Carol her thanks, but notice her looking between Daryl and I with a crease between her brows. Oh. Did she think —? No, she couldn’t be thinking that we —

 

“Did dad say when we should go back?” Carl asks over his bite of carrot. Carol notices me looking at her, and she straightens up, looking back at Carl.

 

“Hershel said you all should stop for dinner and continue tomorrow.” She says, nodding her goodbye to us. She’s halfway across the field when I see her turn back around. I can’t make out where she’s looking from how bright the sun is and how hard she’s squinting, but I have an idea.

 

“Let’s eat,” Daryl declares over the whole carrot sticking out from either side of his mouth, sitting on top of the Cherokee’s hood with a foiled sandwich and water bottle in his hands. Carl and I sit on each side of him with our own food. We enjoy the break as we look out at the expanse of trees outside the farm, sitting in a comfortable silence.

 

By the time evening comes, we’re halfway between two-thirds and being finished with reinforcing the fence. We ran out of nails twice, venturing trips over to Hershel’s side for more. A walker had stumbled into view not much longer than when we came. Daryl took care of it with his crossbow, and Hershel and Rick shared a look. Shane cussed a storm. I felt a little peeved that he got to take it out, but understood the convenience of it at the same time. Still, my count…

 

The walker was still close to the treeline, so we left it be. Daryl didn’t even go back for his arrow, but there wasn’t really an urgency for it, either.

 

Now, the sun was just about to set behind a bunch of clouds. We left the pallets still out, leaning against the fence, as we headed back to the house in the car.

 

Dinner went without incident.

 

Sleeping, however, did not.

 

I had sat on top of the RV during dinner, Andrea taking watch for the night in the lawn chair across from me. When I went back up, she gave me a weary look.

 

“You sure you want to stay up here tonight?” She asked. I was caught off guard by her talking to me, not the question. It had begun to get colder at night, yes, but she was actually _asking_ if I was okay with that.

 

“It’s fine,” I say, going the rest of the way up the ladder. “It’s not a problem for me.”

 

Andrea doesn’t let it go that easily. “It’s going to be even colder tonight with clouds like that in the sky. I saw you shivering the other night, too. I’m not going to let you stay up here tossing and turning, distracting me from watch.” I felt my eyebrows go up, absolutely not expecting her to say what she did. 

 

I sigh, gathering my blanket out from my backpack that’s been on the roof all day. The pillow Dale had given me was back with Daryl, as I secretly placed it back in his tent before he was to get out of the house. “The floor of the RV isn’t exactly the best place to sleep, either.” 

 

“But at least it’s inside,” she reasons as I start to unlace my boots and place them beside me.

 

I shake my head, not really wanting to continue the conversation. However, it’s not Andrea that continues it.

 

“You can sleep in my tent if you’re that fussy ‘bout it.” Daryl’s voice comes from inside the RV. 

 

I remove the lid of the vent, looking inside the opening to bathroom where he’s washing his hands. He looks up, squinting as the light of the bathroom is also right next to the space I’m in. Isn’t there supposed to be a screen for the vent? It’s just an opening. I can see the leftover pieces around the corners, not looking at Daryl for a second. He dries his hands with a washcloth printed with pineapples.

 

“There’s no room in your tent,” I retort, and he scoffs, walking out of the bathroom.

 

I figure that’s the end of it, but as I start to lay down with my backpack as my pillow, looking at the full moon that’s still not covered by the clouds, I feel my blanket ripped from my front. I gasp, sitting back up.

 

Daryl is still on the ladder as he continues slide my blanket across the RV and towards him. I open my mouth to tell him to tell him to stop, but he only scowls. “Jesus, take the nice gesture,” he says as if he’s been through an entire argument already. I frown heavily, watching as Andrea rolls her eyes and Daryl continues down the stairs with my blanket slung over his shoulder.

 

I sigh with nothing but frustration as I gather my backpack on my back and shove my boots on without lacing them. Andrea and I don’t bid each other goodnight.

 

The tent that sits at least four car lengths away from the others is the one Daryl saunters over to. I follow, awkwardly glancing around as we pass the tents. I see Carl’s pop out between the zipper of the one he shares with his parents. He waves and smiles hugely at me before Lori’s hand is pulling his head back in. I feel a genuine smile sweep my features at the innocence and humor of it before I frown again, remembering the situation. I peek back at the RV to not see the tents with people bustling in them, and see a shorthaired figure peeking through the blinds. It was too willowy to be Dale, and too tall to be Sophia. Carol.

 

I turn back quickly, my cheeks flushing. When the tent comes into view, I feel a sudden jolt as my heart pounds a little faster in my chest. There’s a coppery taste in my mouth, and my cheeks still feel hot as a cold breeze passes by. It’s been a long time, but I feel nervous about something that’s not actually going to kill me.

 

The feelings of embarrassment and nervousness are still there as I follow Daryl into his tent. I don’t know what I was expecting, as I never really looked inside of it when I unzipped it to throw the pillow in, but I imagined it to be a lot messier. Maybe clothes strewn around or what not, but there’s only stuff pushed neatly into the corners. On the right side from where I’m standing at the entrance is the cot. It’s made up with two blankets on top and the pillow I used a couple nights. Right in front of me, in the back of the tent, are folded clothes and a small pile of dirty ones, not folded. Beside the folded pile are books. I’m surprised by the idea of him reading books, as horrible and stereotypical as it may be. Daryl didn’t seem like a bookworm, but the tower of books were taller than his tower of clothes. And that spoke louder than anything he could have said.

 

“I didn’t know it was this big,” I say, speaking truthfully. Daryl looks back at me from over his shoulder, amused and deadpanned at the same time, and I realize what I just said, stuttering as I try to clarify. “Th-The tent. I didn’t know the tent was this big.”

 

Daryl turns back around, letting out a puff of what was either a scoff or a short laugh. He’s shuffling, doing something I can’t see in the dark. He crouches down, making up the covered floor with one of the blankets from the bed. I take off my backpack, placing the object on the floor as I make to go to my new bed on the ground.

 

Daryl lays down in the spot I was going for, kicking his shoes off and sighing in relaxation.

 

“I can sleep there, it’s totally fine,” I say after a moment. It really wasn’t an issue. “It’s your tent.”

 

Daryl turns to his side, adjusting to get comfortable. His voice comes out clearly, even though his back is facing me. “Nah, I won’t sleep if you’ll jus’ be up all night.” He’s using his arm as his pillow, for goodness sake.

 

“How do you know I’ll be awake?” I ask, still staying in place.

 

“Just a guess,” he says, ending it. 

 

I sigh, moving over to the cot. He left one of his blankets still on it, including his only pillow.

 

Grabbing my backpack, I replace his pillow with my backpack, and his blanket with my own. I throw the blanket over Daryl, and he twitches, using his elbow to sit up and look at me.

 

“I don’t need it,” he says lowly, but I don’t listen. I use the opening of him leaning up on his elbow to place his pillow behind him. He glances at as I do, but follows my hand back to me when I pull back. The only light is from the full moon outside, but I can see his face clearly. I can’t read his expression, though.

 

“I have my own blanket, and my own pillow,” I say, not needing him to give up more than he needs to. 

 

He raised a brow. “Then why’d ya take mine while I was recovering from a bullet wound?”

 

I scrutinized him as I replied calmly, “I didn’t take it. Dale offered it to me as unused. I gave it back as soon as I heard you were healed up.” Daryl rolled his eyes, turning away from me, but still spoke.

 

“Coulda aired it out before ya did. Get the fruity smell out.” I shook my head, trying to make sense of what he was saying. Fruity smell? 

 

“I gave it back. I didn’t spray it with anything, if that’s what you’re implying.” I sat down on the cot, taking my boots off and placing them underneath in the open space below.

 

“Coulda aimed it better when ya did. Found it on the floor.” I winced, turning to him from the cot with my blanket up to my chin. His back was still facing me.

 

“I didn’t mean to. I just didn’t want to invade your privacy if I came in. And there wasn’t a fruity smell to it. The only thing that touched it was my head at night.” Daryl is quiet after I finish, and for a moment, I think he fell asleep. His cot was actually quite comfortable. It wasn’t hard and cold like the RV’s roof, and it wasn’t rough like sandpaper from the shingles on roofs.

 

The clouds have finally covered the full moon, and the inside of the tent gets darker. My eyelids droop.

 

“Go to sleep,” he says after the extended pause. My eyes snap open a bit, having already drifted off for a moment. I repeat his words in my head before figuring that was our “goodnight” for tonight. 

 

“You, too,” I say, but it comes out mumbled and sleepy. 

 

I fall asleep to the deep hum Daryl gives back.

 

* * *

 

When I wake up, it’s from the sound of a zipper. I peek my eyes open, seeing no one. Daryl isn’t in the tent. My backpack is where he once was, and one of his blankets is folded neatly under it. His other blanket is over me, and his pillow under my head. My watch reads 6:57am. 

 

I must have been jostled by him moving around, but didn’t wake up until the zipper was too loud. I’m shocked by my inability to have felt or heard him move around. To move _me_ around to place the pillow under my head. I turn over, burrowing deeper into the makeshift bed, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath.

 

It smelled like green.

 

I don’t know what it was, but it just smelled like the color green. It was earthy, but not dirty. It wasn’t cool like mint, but it was still bright with a certain type of newness. I would have thought it was because I never smelled something unmistakably “green” before, but “green” was almost familiar. It was like I always knew it, but I never noticed until now.

 

My eyes snap open, and I jolt up from the bed, blankets flying down to my knees. Was I really thinking that deeply over what Daryl’s blanket?

 

Pushing off the edge, I start to fold up the blankets. I place them at the end of the cot, even going as far as to fluff out his pillow. As I start to pull my backpack straps over my shoulders, I glance around his tent again. It was dark last night, but I could still make out parts of it from the moon’s light.

 

The books piled like towers in the back of the tent were all of a moderate length. They weren’t Harry Potter levels of thick, but they weren’t quick reads, either. Walking over to them, I skimmed my finger down the spines. They didn’t seem to have been sitting idle for long. Some of the titles were familiar, but most were not. I read three of the twenty-eight that were stacked. 

 

I pull myself away from the books, deciding that I was being too nosey, and sat down to tie my laces before heading out to the small circle of people surrounding the camp fire. Lori was mixing some type greens, and Carol was chopping up carrots. I watched as Andrea walked past them to go straight to her tent, Shane relieving her on watch duty. Carol and Lori shared a look as she did, and I felt compelled to walk over to them to help, if only to not have them share a look like that over me.

 

Maybe it was from not being around people for so long, but I realized as I took over chopping carrots so Carol could start to scramble the eggs, that I wanted their approval. I wanted to please people. I knew I took a hard hit in my social skills from my time alone, but I was back in the stage of wanting nothing more than to have people like me. If I was to be staying with them from now on, I kinda needed them to. 

 

Everyone was out of their tents by the time breakfast was fully ready, and I took a seat next to Carl once I was done handing out plates. Daryl wasn’t anywhere to be seen, but I resisted saying anything. His crossbow wasn’t in the tent this morning, either, so he wasn’t defenseless, at least.

 

Rick was sitting next to Carl, and Lori next to Rick. They were talking quietly about something, and I decided to save Carl from the ever growing tension coming from them by asking about how he slept. He shrugged, averting his eyes to his parents meaningfully before looking back at me. My lips tightened together as I nodded, understanding. So his parents were up silently arguing together.

 

“Lila, I was wondering if I could ask you something later.” I glance at Carl from over my forkful of eggs.

 

“What is it?” I ask, figuring he could ask me now.

 

“Later,” he repeats, looking at me seriously. I take in his face and set jaw. His baby fat doesn’t help with taking him seriously, but his eyes do. He looks determined. 

 

“Okay,” I say finally, trying to think of what it could be that he didn’t want to bring up right now. Was it because his parents were beside him? 

 

Everyone finishes up their plates, Lori and Rick ignoring everyone else in favor of whispering to each other. I finish cleaning half of the group’s plates by the time the two break away. Sophia waves at Carl and I as Carol and her walk to the farm house. We wave back, walking towards Carol’s car where a bored looking Daryl leans against.

 

“Took ya’ll long enough. I’m melting into the car.” I roll my eyes good-naturedly, not favoring his words with a response. Carl stays oddly quiet on the way to the fences. I break the silence when he does not, trying to gauge him into conversation. After a few attempts, he finally joins in as Daryl and I go back and forth about what the temperature out here was. My guess is 98 degrees. Daryl says 102 degrees. Carl says 100 degrees, the perfect middle between each of our guesses. We start making more guess-tamations about trivial things — how many trees are on the farm, how many surrounding it, how many pallets we’ve used, and so on.

 

We finish up the rest of the fence before lunch, and things are good. Carl is still more quiet than usual, but I pass it off as just not a talkative kind of day. Daryl wasn’t a talkative person to begin with, and we spent our last pallets in a peaceful quiet. Daryl’s hammer ricocheted it’s hits, and I watched it in a trance each time. It would be a good weapon against the walkers.

 

Rick, Shane, and Hershel come by informing us that there’s no more pallets to do the front. We would need to figure out another way to cover it, or do a supply run to find more pallets. It was agreed the three of them would talk about it after lunch. Daryl, Carl, and I went back to the camp grounds where Lori, Sophia, Carol were starting to cook lunch. Daryl left us to go skin the squirrels he had hunted this morning. So that’s where he had gone.

 

“Let’s talk over there,” Carl points far out by some benches. “I have some math problems to finish.” I follow him, watching as Lori smiles at her son, and he smiles back. I do the same with Sophia, and she looks happy to see Carl and I. We hadn’t exactly been spending any fun time together lately, but it was fine. We would have our moments whenever we all had the chance.

 

Carl is doing basic algebraic equations, and I wonder what grade he was in before everything went down the drain. He was only twelve. 

 

Carl doesn’t ask me for help as he does a few of the problems. I wonder what the point of me being here was. Carl finally looks up at me, his hat tipped back. The look in his eyes is all the preparation I need to know that he was going to say something I might not like.

 

“Math is stupid,” he declares, and I crack a smile. That wasn’t what I was expecting.

 

I lean my temple against my hand as I place my elbow on the table, amused. “Well, some of it can be. But math is also pretty cool if you look at it another way. It doesn’t lie, it helps you when you need to organize things out, and —“ Carl cuts me off.

 

“Teach me how to kill walkers.” Wait. What?

 

“What?” I ask, trying to stay quiet. I stop leaning against my hand, glancing around us, trying to make sure no one was hearing this. 

 

“i could be doing something better with my time than doing math. The stuff you’re saying is true, but that’s basic stuff. When will I ever need this type?” He waves a hand at the paper in front of him, and I try not to see his point. He was right about that, but it still didn’t mean I could just straight out agree with what he was saying.

 

“Carl, have you asked anyone else this?”

 

He shakes his head. “No, only you. I’m ready to use a knife. I’m ready to learn how to shoot. You taught Sophia how to, why can’t you teach me?” 

 

I shake my head this time. “I didn’t teach her anything. I told her to take them out at the knees, that was it. That was _different._ The situation called for it. I had to make sure she would survive even if I wasn’t there.“ Carl’s eyes narrow.

 

“But I can’t? I’ll die being gutted by walkers because the situation didn’t ‘call for it.’” I frown, not liking what he was implying.

 

“Carl, that’s not it. I wouldn’t mind doing it. But…” Carl’s eyes stop glaring at me, and now he looks honestly curious.

 

“But…?” He asks.

 

“I’m not your parents. I can’t make that decision for you.” Carl’s face shuts down again.

  
“They don’t understand. I want to help protect this farm. I don’t want to keep sitting around. Sophia at least does the laundry. I just stand and watch everyone else do work.” 

 

I lick my lips, putting both my hands and elbows on the table, bowing my head in thought. This was a lot to process, and yet I knew all these things all along. It wasn’t a surprise Carl felt this way, but it still didn’t mean I knew what to do.

 

“Carl,” I start. He doesn’t want to listen.

 

“No,” he stands up. “If you’re not going to do it, then don’t talk to me.” I grab his shirt’s hem. 

 

“No, Carl, let me just talk —“ He yanks his shirt away, going further away from me and towards the RV where Dale is on watch. 

 

I shake my head, pulling at my bottom lip with my thumb, trying to figure out what to do with this new insight about Carl. I needed to tell his parents.

 

Getting up from the bench and finding Lori was simple, but when I saw her speaking tensely with Glenn, I didn’t approach them. Rick it was, then.

 

Rick was sitting on the bed of a yellow pick up truck. I don’t think it actually ran, or else we would have used it to carry the pallets out to the fences. He was sharpening a short knife, one that looked like the one I gave Sophia while in the woods. The knife I had let her use was back in my backpack now, though.

 

“Rick,” I greet him as I get closer. He pauses at his work to look up and give me a nod before going back to it.

 

I sigh, figuring there’s no other way to put it. “Carl wants to learn how to take down a walker.”

 

Rick fully stops now, a crease in his forehead as he looks back up at me. “He what now?” 

 

I rub at the side of my right eye with my palm, pulling it back to make me feel a little more awake to tell him about what Carl told me. I wasn’t physically tired, but mentally. I was actually talking about issues within the group, and not just asking if anyone needed help with tasks. 

 

After I explain what Carl had asked me for, I give in my two cents without being asked. “I do think that he should know how to defend himself. He’ll need to know sooner rather than later. But I know it’s not my place to make that decision. I just needed to tell you.” I don’t know Rick that well, so I don’t know how well my opinion would be taken from him.

 

He’s silent, biting the inside of his bottom lip, staring down at the knife in his hand. I let him take his time thinking before he nods, pursing his lips, and then looks up at me.

 

“Thank you for telling me.” I nod, a little confused. Of course I would tell him. Who wouldn’t?

 

“Of course,” I say, adjusting my locked knees. He nods again, more to himself, before wiping his hands on his knees.

 

“Do you—“ Rick interrupts me, jumping off the bed of the truck.

 

“It’s a good thing he’s growing up,” is all Rick says as he walks away from me. He pockets the knife, going towards where Carl is now fiddling with a stick outside the RV. I see him crouch down to Carl, and Carl looking at me before looking back at his dad. Rick pats his shoulder before handing the knife out to Carl. His eyes light up and he nods his fervently. He’s smiling widely at his dad, then at me, and then at his dad again, calming his features to look more serious.  

 

I rub my eyes with the heels of palms, sighing. Okay, that was handled. That was good. I did my part. But I needed to get better with my words, apparently. People kept interrupting me or walking away. Or maybe the problem wasn’t me, but the people. Whichever it was, I needed a few moment by myself. Maybe I could help with something in the house?

 

Maggie and Glenn are in the kitchen when I open the door to the house. They’re not making out, which I’m thankful for. They look like they’re talking about something serious, judging by the worried and pale Glenn. The screen door shuts behind me, and they jump, turning quickly towards me. I smile and nod, walking towards them.

 

“H-Hey, Lila,” Glenn stutters, staring at me with too wide eyes. Maggie kicks him under the table. He turns back to her, looking scared again, and she motions at him with her head. I had never seen someone hiding something so obviously before. 

 

“What can we do for ya?” Maggie asks, smiling welcoming at me. She’s better at pretending than Glenn is.

 

“Just came to see if anything needed to be done around the house. In thanks for all of your hospitality.” Maggie looks back at Glenn before looking back me, taking a deep breath and smiling again.

 

“I don’t think there’s anything, really,” but as she says this, something catches my eye. A pile of dishes in the sink. I look over at them, and Maggie sighs in relief. This was so off.

 

“Oh!” She exclaims, scraping her chair as she gets up quickly. Glenn does immediately with her, and I frown. She notices, and bustles out with Glenn. “I’m sorry, I just remembered there’s some peaches for your group. Glenn, come help me with picking them. And, Lila, that would be really nice if you could finish those dishes. Thank you. See you later.”

 

They calmly but stiffly leave the house. Immediately going into hushed whispers as soon as the screen door slams behind them. Were they starting to get anxious about hiding their relationship? They had already told me, though. 

 

I let the mindless chore of cleaning dishes ease my mind. There weren’t any walkers coming at me right now, so the mindlessness of killing one wasn’t at my disposal. Next best thing, I guess.

 

After so long by myself, being around so many people was still a difficult. I found myself getting headaches for often than not from the stress of the others. I know the world was straining for everyone, it was even before there were dead people trying to eat you, but I found my way of coping. Maybe they were still figuring that out. 

 

I’m on my last plate when the screen door opens again. I look over, and see Andrea strutting in. She sees me immediately, eyes my soapy hands with distaste. She doesn’t beat around the bush as soon as she makes eye contact with me.

 

“Do you have an idea on what I can give Daryl to say I’m sorry for shooting him in the head?” I reeled back in surprise, watching as she awkwardly tugged at her messenger bag. 

 

She continued once I didn’t reply. “Last night, when I told you not to sleep on top of the RV, I knew Daryl was in the restroom. He wouldn’t let a girl sleep out in the cold, no matter how weird he gets about human contact. And I knew you’d sleep inside his tent, well, probably sleep inside, and maybe you can tell me something about him. Something that he might like. I didn’t want to bring him a dead squirrel as some apology gift, but that’s the only thing that seems promising right now. And besides, I think he likes the thrill of the hunt anyway.” 

 

My mouth is gawking at the audacity and confidence she had at her plan. Also from how it actually worked. I did know more about Daryl from being inside his tent that contrasted with his rough exterior. But why didn’t she go in herself?

 

“Why didn’t you go inside yourself?” I ask, not angry but not finding her choice perfectly logical. I wasn’t, but maybe I shouldn’t be as okay with what she did as I actually was?

 

“Daryl knows when someone’s been in there. Lori went in to drop off his laundry, and he threw a tamper tantrum about privacy in the camp. I didn’t feel like asking her for any favors, either. The woman acts high and mighty as is.”

 

I remembered what Daryl had said about his pillow being out of place when he came back from recovering in the house. I figured it was because of how sloppily I placed it back, but now I understood.

 

“I don’t think you really asked me for a favor, either,” I say, raising a brow.

 

“No, but I would owe you one,” she says, smiling a little and shrugging. I contemplate for a moment how the animosity that was between us before is now almost gone. It felt like an out of water experience.

 

“Books,” I state. “Daryl has a lot of books in his tent.” Andrea raises a speculative brow.

 

“You sure he’s not using them for firewood?” I resist a snort.

 

“No, he wouldn’t have bothered in keeping them that neat. He had them in alphabetical order.”

 

Andrea nods, giving a “Huh,” full of unexpected wonder. She shakes her, trying to rid the disbelief that’s still in her features. “I knew his brother and him read books in their free time, but I only saw it once. They spent almost all their time hunting back in the mountains. Guess I shoulda listened to Dale the first time. Wouldn’t have owed you.” I frown, noting how she had asked around already. Dale was observant when it came to people, I already knew. I wonder if he was as confused on Daryl as I was. 

 

“It’s okay,” I say automatically. I finish my sentence after a second of thinking. “You don’t owe me anything.” She gives me a “No bullshit” look.

 

“C’mon, there’s gotta be something. I made you stay the night with Daryl Dixon. Well… maybe that wasn’t that bad of a night.” She raises an eyebrow in interest, and I feel my ears heat up. We didn’t do anything last night, and Andrea knew that. But she was still making the suggestion that made me feel awkward. I look away for a moment, back at the dishes in my hands. My hands are pruney. 

 

“Well, maybe something,” I say, after a moment of staring at the suds drying on my arms. Andrea nods, listening.

 

“Do you have any hair ties?” I look over at her, and she smiles.

 

“Obviously I can’t get this look without ‘em,” she says, turning her head to whip her hair around, gesturing to the tie that’s holding the front half of hair out of her face. I smile at her cheesy grin, and feel a little piece of me on the inside open up. I feel happy. 

 

Andrea’s tent is messier than Daryl’s, in some odd contradistinction of the universe, and I don’t know what to make of this information.

 

Andrea goes inside her tent before me, goes through a few piles of things, and then tells me to wait in her tent while she goes and gives Daryl a book. 

 

When she comes back, she looks more smooth around the edges, like she finally fixed a problem that’s been bugging her. She then goes shuffling through a box of random toiletries. She pulls out a small plastic container of brown hair ties. When she’s about to close back the box, something catches her eye. 

 

“What is it?” I ask, curious. 

 

She hands me the hair ties, but reaches back in to pull out shining, silver scissors.

 

She turns to me, holding them out. “I don’t think I mentioned I know how to use a pair of these, did I?” She snips them in the air, not moving them anywhere. I look at them for a moment before looking back at her. 

 

“You won’t make me look stupid?” I ask, holding the hairless to my chest. She shakes her head.

 

“Nope. Now let’s go outside in the light.” I follow after her. She doesn’t wait for me to zip her tent back up, too eager in her venture to find the best place with light.

 

We’re a little far from the camp, but it’s okay. We’re by a cut down stump of a tree. I’m sitting on it, Andrea behind me. Just beside us, a muddy trench is still glistening with moisture, the sun not drying it out already.

 

“Alright, how short?” she says after she’d done brushing my hair out. We haven’t wet my hair, figuring it wouldn’t be wise to waste water like that. I look down at the hairless in my hands, debating.

 

“I want to be able to still use these. I earned them,” I add, jokingly. I really hadn’t. If anything, I had done nothing that really caused me any hardship. Daryl was nothing but courteous when I stayed in his tent. I slept in his cot while he slept on the floor. If anything, he went through a  hardship with me intruding in his space.

 

Andrea peers over my shoulder at the ties, and I turn to her, but she’s already veering back.

 

“Okay,” she says, and as quickly as I feel her gather a handful of my hair, she’s cutting. I flinch, turning around when she’s stops. She’s holding a ponytail of my hair, and I feel like I won’t have any left for one. I look down and touch my hair, but it’s just below my underarm, right by the end of my bra strap. I look back at the length she’s holding, and it really hits me how long it grew out. I thought it was only to the middle of my back. It was past that.

 

“Do I look weird?” I ask, knowing I won’t be able to see a mirror unless I somehow get back in Hershel’s bathroom. Even then, I apparently couldn’t see myself correctly in it. Her upper lip goes over her top in contemplation.

 

“Eh,” she drawls, sounding unsure. I give her a deadpan look, not finding it amusing. She cracks a grin. 

 

“Don’t worry, give me a few minutes, and I’ll be taking it back.” I forced a smile at the easy one she gave, and turned back around, letting her do what she wanted. 

 

“Y’know, I used to cut my sister’s hair,” she says after a few snips. My mind goes back to what Carl had told me about the quarry, when the group had stayed in the mountains. “She liked her hair this length. Her name was Amy. And she always looked beautiful. I would say I played a part in it with my haircuts, but I know it came naturally to her.” I smile at the fondness in Andrea’s voice. She really loved her sister.

 

“Her hair was thinner than yours, but she knew ways to work around it. She always looked her best. Always. Mostly because she never needed to try, one of the many differences we shared.” Andrea doesn’t go any further, and I don’t push her to. I tell her I’m sorry, but it doesn’t feel like enough. I’m sorry wasn’t enough anymore. Everyone was sorry nowadays. We stay quiet.

 

Little hairs prickle my arms and neck when she’s done. I look over to her, and she smiles, taking in her work. I used to feel a certain type of way when she smiled, but being on the receiving end of them, it made me feel differently. A better different.

 

“Even if you and Daryl didn’t do anything last night, you may want to think about tonight.” I stand up quickly, not liking the joke. Daryl and I were not like that. She chuckles, holding her hands up in resignation. “Alright, joking aside, you do look good.”

 

I sweep the stray hairs from my chest, and Andrea works on getting them off my arms. 

 

“May I recommend taking a shower in the lovely abode of the Greene’s?” She plays, sauntering around to motion dramatically at the large white house. I smile at her theatrics. If it wasn’t so early, I would have thought she had been drinking. She acted so differently compared to what I originally saw of her.

 

“I’d have to really need it before they let anyone else use their shower. They don’t want their water all used up.” Andrea’s eyes sparkle, and I can tell I already don’t like what she’s thinking.

 

“Maybe an accident can happen? No one needs to know.” She pushes me, and I figure I would only stumble, but there’s no level ground behind me, and I’m falling back. I hear the _splat_ just as I feel it, and can’t help but feel my face scowl in distaste as the entirety of my back, and some of my front from the splash, get covered in wet mud. 

 

The smell, however, makes me shudder.

 

“Andrea,” I say low and slow. My entire body is tense. I didn’t mind the blood and gore that came from killing someone that was already dead. I didn’t mind having to touch bodily fluids with my purple gloves before I ever had to kill someone that was already dead. But to be laying in a trench of what the smell surrounding me did, I couldn’t keep calm.

 

Andrea’s face morphs into pure disgust. “Oh, god,” she grimaces, face going green.

 

Patricia is sitting on the porch, knitting, when she sees us come into view. Her nose scrunches up the closer I get, and she opens the door for us, ushering us in.

 

“Honey, use as much as you need,” is all she says before closing the door behind us. Andrea helps me up the stairs, taking care not to let me touch anything or leave any tracks behind. My shoes were kicked off in the grass outside, at least.

 

We make it up the stairs in the bathroom. I’m taking off my clothes, not caring that Andrea is still there. She respectfully turns her head away, keeping the door shut as she bows her head against it. I fold up the clothes, throwing my knives in the sink. I had never been more thankful for not being able to add to my count everyday now. If I had my journal on me, and not in my backpack as it had been, then my notebook would have been ruined. 

 

I’m down to my intimates when I see my ring. I almost break down. Andrea notices me not moving, and turns around. I’m still staring at my ring, just looking at how the brown and black mess covers it’s sparkle. I look up at Andrea, and feel my face crumple. Her face turns into an expression I can’t quite place from the emotions I’m overwhelmed by. She motions for me to hand it over, but I don’t want to. I haven’t taken it off since I put it on. Since Spencer put it on my finger.

 

“It won’t get clean if it stays there,” she points out, but my mind roars. I don’t want to. I don’t want to. I don’t want to.

 

“Lila,” she says, and it’s the first time I’ve heard her use my name. It stuns me out of my mental turmoil, and I gingerly pry the ring off. She takes it with equal carefulness, her bare hands holding the sullied piece of jewelry.

 

But it was more than that. It was everything. It was my prized possession. The notebook could get ruined, but it wouldn’t matter. Spencer’s ring mattered the most to me. It was the only thing I cared about losing. My life could end, as long as I had that ring still on my finger.

 

“Don’t you dare lose it,” I threaten, and Andrea looks up at me. I realize I had never actually threatened anyone in this group, nor tried to frighten them in anyway. This was the first time, and Andrea was startled. Even with filth covering my entire back, I could still be intimidating. _Good_ , a voice in my head said. I had just grown closer to this woman less than ten minutes ago, and here I was going back on all our progress.

 

She nods reassuringly. “Of course, I won’t even go by a drain.” She says, and I feel a little better. Good. This was fine. Everything was fine. Good, good.

 

I take my time scrubbing at my body. I scrub as hard as possible, my skin going red from the steaming water and my own rubbing. I shampoo and conditioner my hair twice, not caring about the wasted product. The bar of soap is down to a mere leaf of what it used to be by the time I turn the water off.

 

Andrea knocks on the door, peeking in almost as soon as I shut it off. She must have been waiting outside the door for me. I look from behind the curtain, and she hands me a new set of clothes and my cleaned pair of boots with new socks. I take them, placing them on the toilet’s closed lid. She holds her hand out again, and I see the glimmering diamonds of Spencer’s ring as soon as it comes into view. I quickly obtain it from her, pushing it back on my ring finger, feeling the barbed wire strings of anxiety in my insides smooth over, relaxing in a puddle of nothing in the pit of my stomach.

 

“Thank you,” I whisper, the harshness of earlier gone. “I’m sorry that I —“ Andrea cuts me off.

 

“Don’t worry about it. You did nothing wrong.” I want to argue that I did threaten her, but decide against it, knowing it wouldn’t change anything. 

 

“Now get dressed. Lori, Patricia, and Beth are busy with whatever, and Carol wants you to help her with dinner.” 

 

“And you’re not going to?” I ask, and she smiles smugly.

  
“Gun practice.” She closes the door behind her, and I step out from the tub, locking it.

 

The clothes she’s left me are cotton and soft. There’s a beige, bordering light pink tank top that fits just snug enough to be decent, and a light grey, hoodie. The blue jeans are ripped up a bit, but they fit nicely. My boots are slightly damp, but they’re clean, at least. The grey tube socks she gave me are thick, helping with the colder nights. I feel a warm cloud form in my chest at the thoughtfulness.

 

I don’t bother with the hair dryer, figuring it didn’t make much of a difference last time except drain some of the energy from the generator out back. I head down to the kitchen, the tell tale chopping ringing throughout the empty house. No one was inside except for Carol, it seemed. 

 

Carol doesn’t greet me as I come in, just gives me a sideways glance. I don’t take it to heart, but I do notice it. 

 

“What are we making today?” I ask her, but she just looks at me again. She looks at my hair, my clothes, and then back to my eyes. She flickers her eyes behind her, where there’s a colander full of cucumbers. I nod, going over to rinse and chop them.

 

We’re quiet, and I keep shooting glances Carol’s way. Was she okay? I try not to think too much about Carol’s silence, but do anyway. Carl had been quiet earlier today, and it turned out he had been thinking about getting training to kill walkers. There must be things weighing on her mind, too. We weren’t very personal with each other, but we were on good terms. I was concerned. 

 

I just finish rinsing the cucumbers off before I decide I should just ask. No harm in asking, right?

 

“Hey, Carol,” she hums her acknowledgement, not turning away from chopping up the potatoes in front of her. I hesitate before just throwing out the question. “Is everything alright?” She stops cutting.

 

She turns to me, and she looks eerily calm. It doesn’t ease my worry. “Are there any reasons why it wouldn’t be?” She finally speaks, and it’s like a challenge. Like she has something against me.

 

I try not to fidget, but it still happens, a little uncomfortable with the look she’s giving me. “No, I don’t think there are. But I don’t know everything. That’s why I’m wondering if there’s anything you want to talk about.” Carol’s face morphs into something, and I don’t know what she’s about to do for a moment, before she drops the knife and potato she’s holding to wipe her hands on her cargo pants. I place my knife and cucumber down, wondering what she will say.

 

But she doesn’t say anything. Instead, she moves her arm behind her back, pulling it back in front of her to reveal a knife. My knife. The one I had given Sophia weeks ago when we were still in the woods. The one that I thought was still in my backpack.

 

“I found this in Sophia’s laundry this morning.” Carol places the bear knife on the counter at equal distance from us. I frown at it, wondering what she was going to say next. I didn’t give Sophia that knife.

 

“And Carl was found with a gun in his pocket that he lied to Dale to get to,” she continues, crossing her arms over her chest. She looked calm, but the anger behind her facade was obvious. Did she think I had played a part in that? I didn’t even know until now. Was that what Carl had been doing when he asked Dale to let him in to get a walkie talkie?

 

“I didn’t —“ I get cut off, Carol shaking her head and interrupting, not taking her eyes away from mine.

 

“They have done nothing but tell Lori and I how amazing you are since you got here. It was amusing at first, but now it’s getting out of hand. You’re putting our children’s lives at stake if you start handing out weapons or _persuade_ them to go get some, as well as going behind their parents’ backs.” I took in a breath, ready to give my side of the argument, but she continues on, going for a more “lenient” approach.

 

“Listen, what you do with Carl isn’t any of my business, but Sophia is. I know she’s been worshipping you since you brought her back to us, and I can never thank you enough, but it’s not right. I don’t want my daughter around weapons right now. _Not yet._ Carl’s a boy, he finds these things interesting at a young age, but Sophia’s still my Sophia. I won’t tell Rick and Lori about what you were doing, but I recommend you do before continuing it.”

 

“Rick and Lori —“ I begin, but she interjects once again.

 

“They thought it was you that put the thought in his head.” My mouth drops, not believing that. Rick knew I would never do that. Didn’t he? I had told him about what Carl asked of me. I had — “Shane said it first, and Lori agreed, but Carl talked Rick into thinking it wasn’t true. He said he did it on his own, that it was because you wouldn’t even when he asked you to, but Lori and I agree that you could have said something to his parents about it. I guess you have a way with men, because Shane and Rick are taking Carl out to gun practice today.” 

 

I feel my face scrunch up, scoffing in disbelief at what I was hearing. _Way with men?_ What did she mean by that?

 

“I see that you really made quite an impression on him — Carl. But that won’t happen with my daughter. She’s smart, and she listens to her mother. We’ve been through more than you could ever know, and I’m not going to let you come and pull us apart.” Carol’s eyes start to get red, and I can see her swallow a lump in her throat.

 

I can’t take having this misunderstanding lingering between us longer than it needs to. I grab her wrist as she turns to leave.

 

She yanks it back. 

 

“Don’t touch me!” She yells, a wild look on her face before it morphs into one that is almost as surprised as mine from her outburst. A single tear streaks down her cheek, and I flinch back, holding my hands out in surrender. She straightens her shirt out, clearing her throat, and looking around the room as she wipes at her face. I take my opening, lowering my hands down slowly.

 

I start from the beginning, talking as sincerely as possible. “I haven’t given them any weapons. I’ve been completely honest with you when I said I wasn’t teaching them how to use them. When Sophia and I were out there by ourselves, I gave her that knife to protect herself. I took it back when we got to camp. She would have been defenseless out there. If I hadn’t given her it, a walker would have gotten her. It almost did, even when she had it.” Carol glances between the knife on the table and back at me. She looks like she’s second guessing what she originally thought. 

 

I swallow once, knowing that what I say next will conflict with what I’ve said so far. “However, I do think it’s best if they learn how to kill a walker. I haven’t done more than tell Carl and Sophia to take them down at the knees for the height that they are, but they should know more than that. Sophia should go with you to gun practice today. With you there with her, you can help her. She’d do a lot better with you as her teacher than I could ever. She’s your daughter. Carl is Rick’s son. It’s only right.”

 

Carol blinks away the rest of her tears, taking a deep breath. She turns around, but before she leaves, I want to make sure she knows something else.

 

“I would never want to get between you and Sophia. I know what… what your husband did. I’ve never had to go through that, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry I caused you that much grief. Sophia is so smart, she listens to everything and remembers it. There is no way I could ever get between you two. What you guys have… I’m almost jealous of. I don’t remember my mother that well, but I remember some of the ways she made me feel. The last thing I want to do is interfere with your time together. The bond you two share is sacred.”

 

Carol stays still for a moment, her back still facing me, so I take that moment to wipe at my eyes. They’re not full of tears, but they sting. My throat is itchy. I’m getting worked up over admitting my own feelings. 

 

Carol slowly turns around, and I play off wiping my eyes as tucking a piece of my hair behind my ears. Even with Andrea’s expertise with scissors, pieces don’t stay and come into my face. I suppose she cut my hair to make it harder to grab from the length more than anything. Her face is expressionless, and I feel like my words fell on deaf ears for moment before she nods her head.

 

“Thank you,” she concedes, and I smile, nodding back.

 

“Let’s finish cutting these up before handing them out, shall we?” 

 

We resume cutting the cucumbers, a tranquil silence between us. There was nothing to say.

 

* * *

 

After we pass out lunch, people start to gather around the cars to go out to gun practice. In Otis’ blue truck, Jimmy, Beth, and Patricia sit with solemn faces. I cross my arms as people start bustling into the cars. I notice Carl and Sophia giving me the biggest smiles from the back window of the cars they’re in, and I can’t help but smile back, a little tired. They probably thought I did all the work, but if they’re parents hadn’t said yes, then whatever I said wouldn’t have mattered.

 

Shane asks if Glenn will come, but he says he’ll be busy learning something with Dale about the RV, that he should probably go find him. Dale stood beside me as he tells Glenn he found me, and Glenn looks extra fidgety all over again. Shane shakes his head, closing the green hatchback of the SUV they were also taking, and I wave goodbye at them as everyone leaves. Sophia peeks her head out of the side window.

 

“Bye!” I smile and wave a little harder at her. 

 

“See you later!”

 

The dust is still flying from the cars, but there’s only Glenn and Dale standing with me. Glenn looks awkwardly at me, and I take it as my cue to go. I awkwardly look away, sauntering away from the pair and towards the farm house, distancing myself away from them.

 

As soon as I’m about to open the door to the house, it suddenly rushes out from the other side.

 

I reflexively jerk back, about topple down the stairs I had just walked up, when a hand grabs my wrist and stops it.

 

“Shit,” Daryl grunts, surprised to see me, too. I release a deep breath that I had gasped in, and laugh a little out of shock. How stupid.

 

I look at Daryl as he released my wrist, and I can’t help but look at him from his shoes up. He’s changed out of his ratty sleeveless shirt into a cleaner one with all the buttons still on it. He’s also wearing a black leather vest, new cargo pants, and shined boots. He looks more clean that I’ve ever seen him.

 

“You look… good.” I say, not really knowing what else to say when he notices me looking and pointedly scowled. “I mean, I haven’t seen you out of the same shirt.”

 

Daryl adjusts the crossbow swung over his shoulder as he looks at me this time, doing exactly what I had done with him. “I guess we all don’t have time to go get haircuts, though,” he says, eying me with something that I can’t tell is meant to be offensive or just how he usually looks at things.

 

“Andrea cut it. Figured it would help while I was out. Less to grab.” I absentmindedly touch the ends of my hair, and it feels a little weird. I used to see my reflection everyday before the world changed. The one in Hershel’s bathroom was a rare commodity now. All the mirrors I stumbled across in the past were broken or too smudged with dirt to make out anything. More people saw me more than I saw myself.

 

“You don’t go out,” he points out, and my fingers twitch absently. No, I haven’t gotten off the farm since I first got dragged here. 

 

“Don’t really get a lot of chances to, I guess,” I shrug. The twitchiness I felt with not getting counts in everyday had resided more lately. I had other means to keep busy. Everyone did. I knew I would have to kill a walker again in my life, but that day wasn’t today.

 

“You wanna?” Daryl asks, and I do a double take. Did I want to go outside?

 

“Yeah,” I said, quick and a little too excited. Daryl looked a little uncomfortable when he adjusted his crossbow again, but it looked so normal, I almost didn’t notice. He was just moving his crossbow around a lot more than normal. Was I finally starting to pick up on his mannerisms?

 

“I was gonna go huntin’. Rick doesn’t want anyone going out by themselves anymore, either. It’s either you or Glenn, but Chinaman’s too busy with the farmer’s daughter.” Daryl starts to go off the steps, not looking at me as he pays attention to the ground. I furrow my brows, the smile on my face from the proposition of getting off the farm kinda wavering.

 

“He’s Korean,” I say, wondering if I should care as much as I do about the nickname Daryl said. Maybe he was using it because he was on friendly terms with Glenn, and I was just taking this way too seriously? I don’t find out which it is before Daryl turns sideways to look back at me. He’s down the stairs, but I’m still standing on the porch.

 

“You comin’ or not?” He asks, looking done already. He has angel wings on the back of his vest. They’re so intricate, I want to study them longer and at a better angle.

 

I hum and nod. We go off to the RV to get some water and guns. There aren’t a lot of guns still in the small bag, as more than half of the entire group took them for training. I grab the two I came here with, which were thankfully not taken, and place the water in my backpack. My bat has been securely in the back of it this entire time, and I try not to think too hard on how long it’s been since I used it. Daryl grabs an older looking model of a gun. I can’t tell if it’s his personally, or if he just prefers it. I don’t ask.

 

* * *

 

Daryl and I have been walking around a while before we really find anything. I figured we were just walking around, waiting for the off chance of finding some squirrels or rabbits, but I realize soon enough, Daryl was actually tracking. 

 

“How long have you been able to track?” I ask after he shoots down a squirrel climbing up a tree. We’ve already walked across to go unpin it from the bark before he speaks. 

 

“Since the moment I was old ‘nough to know what that word meant,” he grunts as he pulls the arrow out, and he ties the head of the squirrel on a type of stretchy string. My chains would probably help in carrying these small animals. At the moment, only one of my hands was holding my bat.

 

“By yourself?” I ask, a little confused on how he learned. Carl and Andrea did mention he had an older brother. Maybe he taught him the skill?

 

“Runs in the family, I guess,” he says, and I take it one of his parents taught him how to. Maybe they taught his brother and his brother taught him? I didn’t know much of anything about the man, so I couldn’t really say.

 

“Good skill to have,” I note, jumping over a small rush of water. I almost slip on the gooey moss under my boots, but I push through the slide by using the end of my bat for support. Daryl jumps over it with practiced ease. He doesn’t even wobble on the mushy ground. When did it last rain?

 

“Guess so,” he mumbles, and I glance over at him. He’s staring at the ground and around the bottom of the trees, hunting for something. He looks so serious. He looks calmer than I’ve seen  him than with the others.

 

“Does it help you?” I ask, and he gives me a dubious look.

 

“Feeds everyone dinner, don’t it?” I shake my head as we walk into an open patch of land and stop. There’s no trees in this patch that’s about the area of a car garage. 

 

“No, not just that. Does it relax you? Make you feel better by doing it?” Daryl flicks his eyes to mine before looking back up the tree he’s been examining. He didn’t answer me.

 

He aims his crossbow, fires three times, and for a brief moment, everything is still. Then, three large squirrels come dropping from the trees. The sight makes me feel a little bit of sadness. They had no idea, did they? It was for the best that way.

 

As we pick up the squirrels and pull Daryl’s bows out of their chests, a growling sound emits from beside us. We jump back from the trees, on to the other side of the open patch where other trees are. Daryl gets his crossbow ready, but I don’t want that. I want it. I want to take it down.

 

I grip my bat with both hands now, and walk to the middle of the patch. As I do, a walker comes out from the shadows. It was a man before he had been reanimated. He looks sickly skinny, but it doesn’t give me pause as I raise my bat up, flying it down on its bald head. There’s a piece of skin missing out of it, showing white bone from his skull. I see cracks go across the white after he falls, and dark, almost black blood begins pooling around him. His glasses were broken before I had hit him.

 

_One._

 

Right behind this walker was another one that I didn’t see until now. It looks exactly like the one before. Exactly like him. Sickly skinny, bald hair, and glasses. These aren’t broken, however, and his head isn’t missing a piece out of it. They were twins, it seemed.

 

I swing my bat across his temple, and his thin-framed glasses crack around the edge of his left eye. There’s a deep gash to his left temporal lobe, and it looks almost reminiscent to the ripped off piece of skin as his twin. I don’t want to think about it like that, so I block the observation out.

 

_Two._

 

I wipe my bat off on the grass below me. I didn’t want to favor one twin over the other, so I didn’t. The grass is pretty good at wiping the blood off, too.

 

As Daryl and I continue walking further out into the forest, he speaks up.

  
“It does.” I look over to him, and he looks up from the ground to make eye contact with me, lips thin.

 

“It helps me as much as taking them down helps you.”

 

My throat swallows in order to not be creepily staring at him, but I feel like it doesn’t work. He turns away, and I wonder if I should ask him how he does it. How he can gaze so calmly at someone for so long, making them feel like an open book. When I do it, it must be creepy. He looks away.

 

I keep my eyes trained on the wings of his back as we continue our journey through the woods. We pass by a few places that feel vaguely familiar to me, but I don’t think about it. We don’t hear any gunshots from the rest of the group training, which is good. They drove far out for that. 

 

“Can you teach me?” I ask after he shoots down a grown rabbit that was hiding in a log. He looks up for a moment as he fetches it out, hauling it out from the hole it was living in. He went quick, I think to myself, like with the squirrels. I had never hunted animals down when I was by myself. I didn’t know how, but also I still couldn’t work myself up to it. It was different killing something without a heartbeat that was trying to eat you. The squirrels and rabbits didn’t do anything to me. 

 

Before everything went to hell, I wasn’t a vegetarian or anything, although I did go back and forth on the idea. I didn’t need to kill my own food back then, though. I needed to work myself up to facing the new world beyond just killing. That was all I did by myself. Kill, eat, walk, and survive. 

 

Daryl comes back over to where I’m leaning my back against a tree. I was drawing swirls on the leaves below my feet with the tip of my bat as I viewed Daryl’s figure coming towards me. He looked strong. He looked capable. He could teach me something new. 

 

He doesn’t verbally respond, just thins his lips and nods, a certain expression on his face as he does. 

 

We stay out for hours, talking every now and then. Daryl gives me pointers on how to track various types of animals, and even walkers. I tell him how I know a little about that, and he gives me a funny look. I can’t understand what type of tells he has in his face, no matter what type of pointers Deanna had given me. I wonder if maybe she could have understood Daryl more than me. I don’t think anyone at camp got him, either, but just accepted it. I could accept it, too. But that didn’t mean I wouldn’t stop trying. 

 

We stay out till its well past dinner time. By that time, I’ve learned quite a bit about rabbits and how they can leave tracks like semi-circles. They’re harder to track, but once you find one, you can find a colony of them. Squirrels go where the densest trees are, and also where immediate food is available. Also by this time, the moon is in the sky, and so is the sun. The sky is a deep red, streaks of orange and grey clouds swirling in it. It’s gorgeous. My watch reads 8:45pm, and that’s been more than enough time for us to have caught two shoulders worth of rabbits and squirrels combined. Daryl keeps one on his right shoulder, and I carry one on the same shoulder.

 

I took down, in total six walkers today. The twins from earlier, three female walkers, and a male walker without an arm. It was a little more than I expected to take down so close to the farm, but figured they probably were just wandering around without any direction. We weren’t making a lot of noise.

 

~~**_= 1,544_ ** ~~

**\+ 6**

**= 1550**

 

I'm writing in my count just as we come in view of the farm. The cars the group took to practice are back. They were, too, then.

 

As we get closer, the calmness from days before is gone. In place of it, frantic running around with flashlights and curses are all that are there. Hershel’s family remain on the porch, staring with anxiousness as everyone goes running around. 

 

Carl looks scared as he stands in the middle of all of the jumbled mess.

 

“Carl!” I call as Daryl and I run towards him. He turns around with wide eyes, looking between Daryl and I before his face crumbles. He isn’t crying, but he looks like he’s about to. He looks frightened and guilty at the same time.

 

“What’s goin’ on?” Daryl asks, looking around at everyone. He looks confused as much as me.

 

“I— I— “ Carl stutters, before furiously wiping his eyes. He keeps his palms pressed into his eyes, shaking his head. 

 

I put a hand on his shoulder, not sure what I should be so freaked out about like him. “Carl, what is it?”

 

Carl looks up, taking a deep breath, his face red and eyes shot. “We were playing. Sophia and I were playing Hide and Seek.” 

 

I feel my face slack, realizing what everyone is cussing and spreading out for. Carl takes in stuttered breath.

 

“And now she’s missing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made Lila a blood splatter analyst for multiple reasons. A lot of thoughts that she has right now will be used again when we finally get to Alexandria, as well as her past occupation. An analyst like she was also fit as a serologist, which would make for her seeing all these decomposing walkers a little less stomach-emptying than the next person. It will still be shocking to see a dead person walking around, but she was by herself for months after the outbreak, purposely seeking out walkers, and became desensitized to killing. A lot of this will be used when I write about the winter they have in the break between season 2 and 3.
> 
> Also, Carl’s character gets a lot of influence from Lila’s. I know in the series he becomes cold for  his own reasons that aren’t said beyond “the world is different,” but I wanted to add more reasoning behind his shut off attitude towards killing walkers and the living.


	9. Gone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I start university next week. ); The campus is huge. I still need to find all my classes. ahhh I’m worried whether I’ll make any friends or not. )’: Also, I got the title for this fanfic because of Franz Ferdinand’s song “Take Me Out” was on a playlist of mid 2000’s alternative songs that I was listening to while cleaning out my room. I started daydreaming about the story and after my room looked 40x better, I started to write the first few chapters at 4 in the morning. haha 
> 
>  
> 
> Also, I went back and correctED Hershel’s name in previous chapters. I have been writing it as “Herschel,” which I still think looks more correct than “Hershel.” Maybe that’s just me, though. I keep writing it as such, but go back to find & replace it when I’m done. Had to manually change it all the chapters from before, though. ):

 

Everyone is up and searching for Sophia. It’s 9 o’clock exactly when Lori tells Carl to stay inside the house with her for the night. He instead stays on the porch, using binoculars to search around the land. Lori stays sitting on the porch swing as he does.

 

Daryl goes in the woods with Rick and Shane to fan around the farm. I hear Shane say, “Can’t this girl stay in someone’s sights for more than a few days at a time?” And as soon as he does, Carol whips around from her position next to Andrea by the windmill to run up and slap him across the face. Had I not been overcome with worry, I would have raised an impressed brow at the gutsy move. He deserved it, I think as I go with Glenn to search behind the house. 

 

Maggie is giving Glenn a scary look from where she walks with her father to a barn that’s on the far end of the farm. Glenn looks absolutely terrified. 

 

“Hey,” I say, putting a hand on his shoulder. He jumps, staring at me in pure fear. I feel uncomfortable with his expression, and he cools it down, but it still lingers under the surface.

 

“I already know,” I start, and his face crumbles into absolute agony. 

 

“Oh, god, how did you find out? I know how I did, and now Sophia is missing, which means she might have came across it and ran away scared and oh, my god, I should have said something as soon as I did, but Maggie told me to keep it under the radar, that we were going to leave anyways, but that I could stay, and we could work around it all, but I was so scared and _didn’t understand_. I should have said _something_. I should have told everyone. How did you find out? How will you tell them? Why haven’t you told anyone yet? Did they tell you to keep it quiet, too?” Glenn bursts like a dam, and I feel overwhelmed. The flashlight in his hands went everywhere as he theatrically moved his hands around.

 

“What?” I ask, a little confused. “You and Maggie told me to not tell the others. I walked in on you two in the kitchen. I don’t know why you’re still jumpy around me. I haven't said anything about it. And Sophia already knew before me, so did Carl. I know you guys are trying, but you don’t need to keep it hushed anymore.”

 

Glenn is floored, shame and guilt pooled deeply in his brown eyes. I frown, not liking it. That wasn’t why he was so antsy, was it?

 

“Glenn, what’s going on? You can trust me.” I ask, and he shakes his head. 

 

“I can’t tell you right now. I should, but I can’t.” He starts walking away, flashlight still in his hands. I follow after him, my own still hanging limply in my left hand.

 

“Does this involve Otis?” I ask finally. I’ve heard about this man so many times, but no one has said anything about it. Glenn turns back to me, his flashlight swirling with him. I wince at the brightness, but he lowers it down.

 

“Otis? What would he have to do with this?” Glenn walks closer to me, and I shake my head.

 

“Not _this_ ,” I gesture around us limply. I was tired of all these secrets in the group. I was worried about Sophia. I couldn’t think about her possibly being hurt somewhere. I couldn’t. And having things cleared up for me could help me with that. There weren’t any walkers around to let me take my frustrations out, but there was Glenn to answer my doubts. “I just feel like everyone has been keeping something secret since I first got here. I don’t know if he’s alive somewhere or he died —“

 

“He did.” Glenn swallows, looking down for a moment. He looks back up at me to tell me what no one else had. “When Carl got shot, he got shot from a man named Otis that had been hunting. Otis and Shane left to go get this medicine that Carl really needed, or else he wouldn’t survive. Shane came back, but Otis didn’t. The only thing that came back of his was his truck and his shotgun. He gave his life to save Carl’s by staying to save Shane’s.”

 

I stay still, not sure what to take in. The only thing of his that came back was his truck and gun?

 

“That’s what I said,” Glenn exasperates, throwing the hand holding the flashlight in the air before slapping it against his thigh. I had said that aloud, apparently. He looks like he didn’t want to talk about what happened with Otis, and didn’t want any questions.

 

“Is that it? There’s nothing else to the story?” I ask, and Glenn looks curious now. Like there _shouldn’t_ be anything else to say.

 

“Yeah,” he answers, a little confused. I frown, thinking it over. At the table, Rick had given Shane a look after Hershel and Patricia said Otis was the one that knew how to play guitar when Glenn had asked if anyone did. 

 

I hum, still thinking about it a little more. I had worked on cases where people had been left for dead after a robbery or drug heist went wrong. The weapon used to kill them was always the one their partner still kept with them. It was in order to not leave any evidence behind. Cops knew that more than anyone else, didn’t they? But the world was different now; surely I was just thinking too much about it. Or was I? A person even in the old world wouldn’t just give their life away like that. This man had a wife, a _home_ with water and food. They wouldn’t be suicidal.

 

I raise my flashlight, walking in the direction Glenn had originally headed in, and changing my mind to the priority right now. Finding Sophia. Glenn walks beside me, and we don’t say anything else for the rest of the search.

 

We look everywhere. Glenn and I check the chicken coups, the tool shed, the hay stacks, the shed where Hershel kept his pallets. Anything that was behind the house, whether or not it was a good hiding spot, was turned over and inspected two fold. 

 

Sophia was smart. She listened to the grownups. She listened to us. She knew, just like Carl, where they were allowed to go and where they were not. Sophia wouldn’t find a hiding spot out in the woods, nor go outside the gates. And the fact that she knew all this made her being missing even worse. I felt sick to my stomach with worry. Was this how everyone felt when she first vanished? To feel this twice would just be rubbing salt in an already tender wound.

 

When the sun starts to peek out from the clouds, everyone meets up on the porch. Soon, Rick and Shane come from the woods. Carol’s breath hitches when they shake their head “no.” We wait a few more minutes in silence before Daryl comes out from the other side of the forest. He doesn’t bother shaking his head, letting the empty space beside him speak loud and clear. 

 

We’ve been up all night, and Sophia is still missing. 

 

“I’m tellin’ you, a girl like that don’t go missin’ in a farm full of people like this.” Shane’s voice echoes around the group. He’s holding both his belt loops with his hands, a hip cocked, and head swinging around to look around us. I can’t tell who he’s talking to specifically, but Andrea is standing closest to him.

 

“Shane, not now,” Rick says, but Shane swivels his already bobbing head around to scowl at Rick.

 

“Then when?” He bellows, and I realize that their friendship Carl had explained to me was a lot more strained than how it must have been before. They’re two very different alpha males. In this moment, I wonder who changed. Someone had to have changed, or else the people they were now would never have been best friends like before.

 

“Shane, we’ve been over this already. Don’t bring it up now.” Shane doesn’t heed to Rick’s warning, and instead carries on, louder. Everyone that lives on this farm is here, gathered in a circle, when he chooses to say what he wants.

 

“ _Ohhhh_ ,” Shane laughs, shaking his head, malicious amusement in his eyes and smile as he looks at Rick, daring him. “I think it’s about time we do, because you see,” he jabs his index finger at me, “that one right there isn’t who she’s saying she is.”

 

I feel my face scrunch in disbelief. I cross my arms, guarded now. Was he serious?

 

“Are you serious?” 

 

Shane turns his head towards me now, lowering his finger. Despite his smile, he’s absolutely humorless. “As serious as you can be when a girl’s gone missin’ twice.”

 

“What are you trying to say?” I growl, not liking his implication. We both hear Rick grit a scolding, “Shane,” but ignore him.

 

“I’m just sayin’ that you coming up here at the time you did was mighty convenient. Not only did you bring a girl we all thought was dead back, but you have somehow been survivin’ out there all by yourself, with nobody else? We’re all getting comfortable here, and now she’s gone missin’ again. I’m just wonderin’ when you’ll decide to bring her back, that’s all. That notebook you got ain’t no proof you killed no thousand walkers. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and ask this: Are you sure your math is right on that? Because you’re just spewing false information out and around this here camp.” Shane has walked closer to me throughout his tangent, narrowing his eyes every now and then to emphasize his words.

 

I raise my chin, jaw set. I wasn’t going to take any of this stupid bullshit. “I think the only one spewing false information out _is you_. I found that girl running for her life, and I did what I don’t think a person like you would have done in that moment.”

 

Shane gets in my face. “A person like me? _Like me_?” He shakes his head, that permanent grin still on his face. This was so shocking to him, it was amusing. “You _don’t know me_.” He puts his hands to the center of his chest, pounding each word of his last sentence into it.

 

I don’t back down. “I know enough. You’re the type to try and bash a living person’s head in on the highway. The type of person to start arguing in front of a group that already has enough to deal with. And I wouldn’t put it past you to be the kind that would shoot another man down and come back with his stuff.” Something in Shane flips like a switch. His previous humor vanishes in a second, and his face closes in. I hit a nerve.

 

“You weren’t there.” Shane’s upper lip is curled as he takes another step closer, intent clear as day in that one move, but I plant myself to the spot. He bumps into my crossed arms, but I don’t flinch back. Instead, I only straighten my back more. Rick, Dale, and Daryl step in. Rick and Dale push Shane back, and Daryl puts himself between us, keeping a hand on my shoulder. I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I was defending myself from an asshole.

 

“Shane, enough!” Rick barks, and I realize now that the veins in Shane’s neck are protruding out like vines. Good. 

 

“What are we doing arguing? My daughter is missing!” Carol cries, and I wish I could have agreed with her, but I wasn’t the one that started it. When did I become involved in everyone else’s mess? The moment I was dragged here, apparently.

 

Lori puts a hand on her back. “Carol, we know. We’ve been searching all night.” Carol brushes Lori off just as Andrea cuts in. 

 

“Oh, and you’ve been doing a hell of a job from the front porch.” Lori swirls on her.

  
“Excuse me? I have a son, in case you forgot.” Andrea smirks, and the amusement behind it reminds me so much of Shane. I feel a bitterness in my mouth, remembering why I hadn’t gotten along with her before, forgetting our new congeniality. She hung around Shane too much; she was picking up on his instigating behavior whether she knew it or not.

 

“Oh, I haven’t forgotten. But I think you do,” Andrea’s harsh words unlocked the group from its previously torpid state. A massive argument unfolds in seconds.

 

It’s hard to keep track of where the words are being aimed, but I know Shane is throwing some my way from how he’s moving his bald head from Rick to myself. Carl runs away from his mom to stand near Daryl and I as she fires insults to Andrea, who is throwing equally malign remarks back. Carol is yelling out at Rick and Shane to _do something_ , and T-Dog tries to calm her, but she turns on him and yells at him. Dale tries to calm her, but she doesn’t listen, causing him and T-Dog to try to talk her down, but only worsening her hysteria. 

 

I’m placing both my hands on Carl’s shaking shoulders to steady them and bring him closer to me as Jimmy, Beth, and Patricia walk blissfully away from it all by going inside the house. Hershel is looking down at the rest of the group from his spot on the porch in equal augur and amazement. Maggie is beside him, a fearful look in her face, but her eyes aren’t scanning the mess. She’s looking dead set at Glenn, who has taken off his hat and is holding the sides of his face like he’s about to collapse as he stares down at the ground. He opens his mouth, and I want to hear what is going to come out of it, but Hershel interrupts.

 

“Enough!” He bellows, his old age having not affected his larynx and vocal cords. The sudden change from his once soft spoken voice surprises me, despite having been one of the few that wasn’t yelling. Carl jumps, and I bring him closer to me. He turns around, wrapping his arms around my hips, burying his face in my waist as his hat falls off his head from the sudden move. I catch it before it falls to the ground, and look up from him to look around again. 

 

Daryl catches my eye. While everyone, including Lori, is looking at Hershel as he tells everyone to shut up, Daryl has his eyes fixed on me. I want to ask if he has a staring problem, the anger still in me from talking to Shane, but I don’t, knowing I shouldn’t. But he’s always staring. 

 

Hershel’s voice carries to everyone. “You people are a parasite. You take something good and trample it down with your bare hands. I have done the Christian way and offered you shelter. I have done more than I was asked. Now, the little girl you once lost is missing again. If you’re not going to look for her, then why are you still on my land, spreading your sickness?” 

 

Carl’s arms tighten around me, and I rub a hand through his hair, then pat his tossed locks down. The gesture makes me close my eyes, remembering doing it so many times to Sophia. Sophia wasn’t in the woods. She wasn’t. She wouldn’t go there. She wouldn’t. And if she wasn’t in the woods, then she was still on the farm. And that was okay. She was safe here. 

 

“We’ll go eat breakfast, then we’ll go back to searching for Sophia.” Rick orders, looking from Hershel to everyone else. His eyes pass over me before flickering down and staying still on the back of his son’s head under my hand. Lori notices, looking over at me, and her jaw tightens, brows furrowed. She looks distressed, like she wants to be there for her son.

 

A chorus of hummed agreements ricochet across the group, and I follow behind Daryl as he leads the pack towards the cluster of tents. Daryl’s winged vest is all I see as we go. Carl’s arms stay around my waist as he walks beside me, his head leaning against me, too. He was seeking comfort. This feeling of being needed and sought for made my insides turn to mush. Carl was so young. He needed someone there for him. He wasn’t a baby or toddler, but he was still a kid. He needed someone to depend on. I know he had his parents, but he also needed a friend. Everyone in the group was there for him, but he needed someone to really get close to. And with Sophia missing, he needed me more than ever.

 

I feel eyes on my back as we walk, and I wonder if Daryl could have felt mine as we make it to camp. I sit on a log with Carl beside me. He unwraps his arms from me, and chooses to just lean his head against my arm, too short to reach my shoulder. I reign in any emotions that could scare him away. I wasn’t used to being something a kid could rely on. When Sophia and I were in the woods, I treated her like an adult. When we found her, I would treat her like how she should be treated. A kid that was growing up in hard times. In the mean time, Carl needed this. And honestly, I think I needed it, too. More than him.

 

Lori helps Carol scramble eggs. They pass the hard plastic plates with piles of scrambled eggs around the group in a clockwise motion from directly in front of them. Daryl sits in a lawn chair right in front of the camp fire, but he passes on the first plate, leading to Carl getting the first. A small smile tingles on the sides of my mouth at his hidden kindness, but it’s only a phantom of what it could be. Smiling at a time like this didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel right without Sophia here.

 

The second plate gets thrusted in front of my face as I sit there playing with my hands. I look up and see Lori looking at me expectantly. Passive aggressiveness wasn’t something I found endearing, although Spencer practiced the motion every now and then. I understand Lori’s frustrations with having her son depending on someone else that wasn’t her. I would be upset, too, but I wasn’t trying to be his mother. Rick wasn’t angry at me for comforting the child I spent so much time bonding with in his room with the company of Sophia. With Sophia missing, I was going to be there for Carl. Sophia wouldn’t want Carl left too long in his thoughts. She said that. She never let him get too bored when he was healing. I would make sure he didn’t get overwhelmed in his worry.

 

Everyone is quiet as we eat. Daryl had gotten up to change into a sleeveless grey shirt while he waited, getting his plate last, and Carol stays by the fire to cook him an extra serving for his thoughtfulness. Lori sat down beside me, Rick on her other side. Lori kept shooting glances to Carl, who was now sitting up to eat, his shoulder rubbing against my arm as he did. His hat laid between Lori and I. 

 

The only sound around the group was the scraping of forks against plates, Andrea sharpening her knife, the cackling of the fire, and the crunching of Shane eating an apple. It’s not tense, but almost lazy. We’ve been up all night, and we were drained. I was sure that the group would cut down in half to sleep a little bit. 

 

I look around the group as I chew, my eyelids drooping a little bit, so it’s more of a lazy flick going back and forth to everyone. Dale was taking up watch on the RV. Andrea had her back to everyone but Glenn and T-Dog as she sharpened her knife. Shane was leaning against a tree munching on an apple he had just picked. Daryl was playing with his food. Carol was scraping the pan, clearing it off. Lori was looking at Carl and then at Rick. And Rick was staring off into space.

 

“Hey.” Lori whispered, and I turned my eyes a little bit more to her. She ran a hand through Rick’s hair. He blinked a few times, drawing back into reality.

 

“Where'd you go?” She asks him, pushing some stray hairs back from his face.

 

“I’m here,” he replies. I turn my eyes away, not sure I should see one of the rare moments they weren’t arguing. 

 

As I look away, I notice Glenn looking off to the farm house. Maggie is still standing on the porch, her arms folded across her chest, intimidating. She shakes her head “no,” and I pause in my chewing. Was she looking at Glenn?

 

Glenn bows his head, and I notice he hasn’t even touched his plate. He looks up, turning in my direction. I almost open my mouth, but remember there’s still food in it, and start to chew it up fast. He’s not looking at me, but higher up, where Dale is. I adjust my back, sneaking a glance up to see Dale nodding his head. I quickly look back down, trying not to look suspicious. What?

 

Why were Maggie and Dale giving different signals to Glenn? Why did Glenn look so torn? What did they know that I didn’t, that the rest of the group might not know?

 

Glenn stands up front his seat, and walks to the open space that everyone can see him in. He clears his throat, looking up at Dale for support. We’re the only ones paying him any attention.

 

“Um, guys.” Glenn clears his throat again, a little louder this time. People’s heads turn to him before going back to what they were doing. “So…” he trails, playing with his empty hands.

 

“The barn is full of walkers.”

 

Every sound stops. My lips part, but I can’t think of anything to say or ask. And from the stillness and expressions of the others, neither can they.

 

Carl presses harder into my side, but I can’t feel it, too numb with shock. I place a hand on his back, rubbing a comforting circle into it.

 

Well, now I finally knew what Glenn has been acting weird about.

 

* * *

 

Shane is the one who walks up to the old and beaten barn that Hershel and Maggie had checked last night. He steps cautiously close to the chained doors, peeking in through the crack between where the doors meet. He eyes inside for a moment before pulling back, wariness gone and pure, seething anger in its place.

 

He stomps back to the rest of us, yanking his hat off and brushing past Rick, who stands in the middle of us all, staring at the barn, as if he could see what was inside from his stand point. Carl is beside me, both his arms wrapped around me again. I run my fingers through his hair, trying to comfort him.

 

“You cannot tell me you're all right with this,” Shane says, running a hand over his shaved head.

 

“No, I’m not,” Rick says, keeping his hands down and trying to stay calm. His words are forced, though. “but we're guests here. This isn't our land.”

 

Shane whirls around, throwing his hands down from his head. “This is our lives!”

 

Glenn raises his eyebrows, saying in a forced but moderate pitch tone, “Lower your voice.”

 

Andrea shakes her head. “We can't just sweep this under the rug.”

 

Shane nods, rubbing at his chin. “It ain't right. Not remotely.” He walks back and forth for a moment, stopping to talk with his hands at Rick. “Okay, we've either got to go in there, we've got to make things right, or we've just got to go. Now, we have been talking about Fort Benning for a long time —“ Rick cuts him, raising a hand to stop Shane from continuing.

 

“We _can't go._ ” Rick strains, but Shane is already on top of his words. 

 

“Why, Rick? Why?”

 

Carol comes in, her voice shaking, clutching Sophia’s doll to her chest. “Because my daughter is still missing.”

 

Shane starts to say something, but stops. He covers his hands with his mouth, taking two deep breaths, trying to calm himself. He retracts his hands, holding them together in front of him like a prayer. “Okay,” he says, but not in the way everyone else wants. “Okay, I think it's time that we all start to just _consider_ the other possibility.”

 

“We're not leaving Sophia behind.” Rick firmly states. Carol looks to Daryl, who doesn’t look at her. He’s staring with narrow eyes at Shane, stepping forward. 

 

“We’re close to finding this girl, she hasn’t been gone more than a few hours.” Daryl says reasonably.

 

Shane shakes his head, eyes wide and humorless despite the smirk on his face, just like how he had talked to me previously. “I don’t think you’re gettin’ it. Let me tell you somethin’, man. If she was alive out there and saw you coming all meth’d out with your buck knife, she would _run in the other direction_.”

 

Daryl pauses for brief moment, before the anger in his expression boils over. He stomps forward, arm waving out. “You don't know what _the hell_ you're talking about.” 

 

Shane goes forward, too. “I’m just sayin’ what needs to be said.” Daryl and Shane go at each other, the sounds of pushing being overlapped with arguing voices, and Rick gets between them, holding his hand out and yelling “hey” and “stop” as loud as possible.

 

I jump in, too, helping Glenn pull Daryl back just as Lori and Rick push Shane back. They’re still yelling at each other until Lori says, “Back off!” and Shane gets quiet, pointing a finger at her and glowers. 

 

“Keep your hands off me,” he says, stomping further away from her, too. 

 

Wait, did something happen between them?

 

It gets oddly quiet, and I realize I still have my hands on Daryl as Rick breaks the sudden pause to bark out, “Just let me talk to Hershel.” He’s keeping a hand outreached to Shane, as if he’s still a danger to someone. As if he should be an arm’s length away. “Let me figure it out,” Rick finishes. Shane swerves, his temper off the roof. I let go of Daryl and look over at Carl. He’s standing by T-Dog. I want to go over to him, but there’s a train wreck in front of me that I can’t look away from.

 

“What are you gonna figure out?!” Lori pushes Shane back again, and now Rick has both his arms extended out, trying to calm the situation.

 

“If we're gonna stay, if we're gonna clear this barn, I have to talk him into it. This is _his_ land.” Rick hollers, fed up with his proposition being stomped over. He was the leader,

 

Dale stepped forward. “Hershel sees those things in there as people... sick people; his wife, his stepson.”

 

“You knew?” Rick scowls, clearly frustrated with everyone knowing things he didn’t.

 

“Yesterday. I talked to Hershel.“

 

“And you waited the night?” Shane buts in, putting his hands on his hips like he was scolding a child.

 

Dale turns to him, something fierce underneath the surface as he addresses Shane. “I thought we could survive one more night. We **did**.” He turns back to Rick, speaking something softer. “I was waiting till this morning to say something. With Sophia missing, I almost said it last night. But Glenn wanted to be the one.”

 

Carol speaks a worry I hadn’t thought of yet. Something I didn’t want to think of. “What if my daughter is in there?” She sounds choked and breathless, and I feel the breath get knocked out of me at the thought. Sophia being in the barn would _destroy_ everyone. But if she was, then that would mean —

 

Glenn jumps in quickly, settling everyone’s nerves. “No, I looked around. There’s no way she could have gotten in. The ladder wasn’t up, and it couldn’t have been knocked down from where it was.” Carol breathes out a breath she was hanging on a thread to. I feel my tense shoulders relax a margin, too. Okay. She wasn’t inside. But where was she?

 

Shane shakes his head, completely done. He yells at the top of his lungs when Rick turns to him and raises another hand to calm him, but only doing the opposite. Shane flips, running towards Rick. “The man is crazy, Rick!” A chorus of voices come in to stop Shane from barging into Rick, but he keeps coming. I jump in front of him and Rick, ready to punch Shane in the face already. “If Hershel thinks those things are alive or not, then—!”

 

Something more effective stops Shane from shoving into me to get to Rick. Chains rattling. Ferocious growls. Grey fingers crawling through the spaces between barn’s doors. The walkers were riled up from all the yelling the group had been doing.

 

We all quiet down, and Lori stumbles back to wrap Carl in her arms. Carol grabs her mouth, backing up. Everyone but Rick and Daryl take a few steps back, including myself. The fact that they were people Hershel knew and cared for changed something in me for a moment. If I had saw Spencer or his family as a walker, I wouldn’t know what to do. I wouldn’t know what to do if I saw my stepfamily as one, either. I would put them out of their misery is what I would like to think. I would make sure they don’t have to have their body be one that reanimated and eats another person. 

 

Rick states he’s going to talk to Hershel, and leaves us in our spots. Glenn says he’s going on watch. Lori mutters something about Carl’s math problems, dragging him off. Andrea and Shane pass looks to each other before they walk away in separate directions. T-Dog and Dale say they’re going to go around the farm again to look for Sophia. Carol stalks off, bowing her head, a permanent crease between her brows as she fusses over Sophia’s doll’s hair. Daryl scoffs, sauntering away somewhere that I don’t know.

 

I stand there, still looking at the barn of walkers. I could go in there and no one would know. I could take them down, silently and one by one. There wouldn’t be a problem anymore. Everyone could focus on finding Sophia. To get on to the roof, you didn’t need a ladder. The roof of the barn was like the baptist church that accepted bikers. There had been an air conditioning generator outside of it, allowing me to carry Sophia up on my back to. There was a tractor next to the building, instead of the air condtioner. I could probably climb up, then hop off it. I’d land in the window opening. It was closed, but I could jimmy it open. But there might not be a place to land if I did, and I could fall into the dead center pit of them all. Hmm…

 

I hop on the tractor, the easiness of having climbed to higher places for so long coming naturally to me. The top of the tractor is not as dusty as the inside. I stand up straight, looking at the distance the window is to me. Releasing a breath, I bend my knees and propel myself forward, right to the window pane. The roof would be easier for me to grab, but I ignore it, aiming for the side of the window that’s a lot more small and a lot more hard to grip onto.

 

I’m flush against the metal and wood boards, barely balancing. But I wanted to get in. I wanted to see. I use the knife on my thigh to try and jimmy the window pane, but it’s not working. I keep stabbing against it, but I only manage to knick my wrist. 

 

I wince, getting angry, the frustration of Sophia missing, staying up all night looking for her, walkers being in the barn… it was all getting the best of me. I punch at the glass, before huffing in high pitched breaths as I keep stabbing my knife in the sticky pane. Finally, I hear a click.

 

I pant out a breath, having worked myself up so much over this damn window, only for that breath to push dust off the wood trim in front of my face. It blows back into my face, and I cough, wincing my eyes as it sucks into my lungs. I can’t stop coughing, and loose my balance.

 

I’m falling.

 

A yelp is forced out of me as my back collides with the packed in dirt ground. My breath is punched out of me, and I cough again, turning over to my side to spit.

No blood. Good.

 

Laying back down, I squint up at the sun in anger as I continue to try and get more air in my irritated lungs. The two guns I had in my waistband dug into the small of my back uncomfortably.

Everything was shit. Being with a group was supposed to make it easier to survive, didn’t it? Then why was everything becoming more difficult?

 

I raise my left hand up, trying to block the sun from my face. My ring glistens. I feel a tiny smile blossom on my open lips. What would Spencer think of me now? I would think of that question a lot when everything first happened. What if Spencer was alive somewhere, and what if he came to Georgia to find me? What if we were reunited? We would get through this world together. We would have. But here I was, climbing barns to peek inside at dead people. All for a missing little girl that I found in the woods while I was hunting down more reanimated dead people to kill. Man, he wouldn’t believe it. 

 

Something wet drops on my cheek. I blink as a reflex, confused. More droplets come, and I turn my palm around to face me.

 

Oh, I was bleeding. I had cut myself when recklessly kept shoving the knife down. The red blood  ran down my upper arm, and I watched in fascination and bit down on the bitter taste in my mouth.

 

No, Spencer _would_ believe it. He had been killed by those cannibalistic reanimations. His entire family slaughtered alongside him. What good was it to think about the “what if”’s? This was my reality. And I needed to face it. Spencer was gone, but that didn’t mean these people would need to be, either. Sophia didn’t need to go. Spencer wasn’t here anymore, but he would wait for me. Wait until I’m done with my count, just like how he would wait for me to get off work all those times before, and we would go be happy together. 

 

I need to get a bandage.

 

Deciding that I would put my faith in Rick, I walked away from the barn. Rick was a reasonable man. Hershel and him could talk it out. Rick could make him see reason, too. Shane wasn’t like that. He would yell and threaten and stomp around, forcing people to hear him. Rick was quieter, more subdued. Silent leadership. People automatically followed his words. I found myself doing that at times, as well.

 

I leave my backpack in Daryl’s tent, and go to the RV to get a bandage. Inside, it looks ransacked. I scowl at the mess, wondering who caused it. Sophia, Carol, and Dale kept this place clean; it wasn’t them I clean up some of the major messes, but try not to spend too much time doing so. There were other more time sensitive things to worry about.

 

When I walk out the RV, Glenn is talking to Maggie, and I decide to stray from their area. Maggie had known there were walkers in the barn. Glenn found out, and she had been keeping him quiet about it. I didn’t know how I felt about that, so I would avoid that opinion making until a later time. 

 

T-Dog was looking in the back of the farm, and Dale had gone into the RV after Andrea. I decide that the left side of the house wasn’t being looked around, so I would try my luck there. The horse stables were over there, too. Sophia loved the horses. She would have gone there, wouldn’t she? Maybe she fell asleep in there. I didn’t know who went looking over here yesterday, or if anyone did at all, so maybe it meant she was there after all.

 

As I get closer to the stables, I see Carol walking hurriedly over there, too. I slow down, about to turn around and find somewhere to go, but see that she’s not holding Sophia’s doll anymore. I get a little excited, thinking maybe we finally found her, and walk faster, too.

 

I hear a thumping sound, and halt. Waiting outside the rusty metal shack. Carol hadn’t entered that quickly to move anything. Was Sophia —?

 

“You can’t.” Carol cries, and my eyebrows scrunch. I peek around the corner, and see Daryl throwing a saddle on a model holder for it. I press up against the side of the building, making sure the two don’t see me. Daryl and Carol bothe had their sides to me, so I wasn’t in anyone’s line of vision. 

 

Daryl, holds his side for a moment, and grunts, “I’m fine,” going towards the saddle bags.

 

Carol shakes her head. “Hershel said you need to heal.”

 

Daryl ignores her heed. “Yeah, I don't care.”

 

Carol crosses her arms, the permanent crease between her brows going only deeper. “Well, I do.” Daryl turns to her, squinting, before going back to his work. Carol continues, trying to stop Daryl from continuing his work on picking up the heavy leather. “Rick’s going out later with Andrea to see if she went off the farm.”

 

Daryl scowls, grabbing the reigns from the hook of the fenced in horse stable. “Yeah, well, I ain't gonna sit around and do nothing.” Carol’s eyes widen, and I didn’t realize how blue her eyes were. They were pretty.

 

“No, you're gonna go out there and get yourself hurt even worse. Lila found her in the woods within minutes. We haven’t even found her on this farm in an entire night. We don't know if we're gonna find her again, Daryl.” Daryl turns to her, not understanding what she’s trying to say. A little disbelief at what she was saying. I wasn’t sure I was believing it, either. This was her _daughter_. I know I got lucky in actually finding Sophia and then helping her with the walkers that tried to attack her, but now we had an entire group that were here. She wasn’t gone forever. She would find her way back somehow. “We don't. I don’t.”

 

Daryl backs away from the reigns, resting them on the wall he was getting them from. He steps closer to Carol, holding onto a saddle bag, daring her to repeat what she said. “What?”

 

Carol looks away, uncomfortable. I don’t understand why I always stumble across their private interactions, but I do. And unlike Glenn and Maggie, I can’t look away. Glenn and Maggie were just Glenn and Maggie. I wan’t confused on the type of people they were, but Carol and Daryl were confusing. I didn’t understand their relationship. And Sophia didn’t want them together. She wanted her mom to herself. And while she was missing, I would need to take up her job in making sure they didn’t have a lot of alone time. Yes, that was what I will do. I will make sure she doesn’t have anything to worry about when she comes back. Yes, that was why I was intruding on this personal moment.

 

Carol licks her lips, looking back at Daryl like a deer in headlights. “I can't lose you, too.”

 

Daryl doesn’t say anything, just drops the saddlebag he’s holding, and continues to give Carol this disbelieving look. I frown, not liking where this seemed to be going. Was he going to take Carol in his arms and kiss her? Was he going to hug her and say something sappy back? Sophia wouldn’t want this. Sophia wouldn’t want this. I wouldn’t want that. I don’t know why, but the thought of them kissing makes me feel a little sick. I chalk it up to how I know Sophia would take to them getting closer while she’s probably knocked unconscious somewhere. Because that’s where she was. She probably hid somewhere, tripped, knocked her head against something, and has been sleeping it off. Yes, that was all.

 

As soon as I adjust my back to walk in, Daryl brushes past Carol. He walks past her, and the stops to turn back at her. His eyes were narrowed, rigid, cold, hard. There was some type of bitterness on his lips that he looked like he wanted to spit out. And then, he lunges at the mannequin hump that carried the saddle he was going to use. He throws it off of it, taking his anger out on it. But as he does, he groans, keeling in pain as he holds tightly to his slowly reddening side. He still had stitches, and now he ripped them.

 

Carol asks the question I want to ask as she goes towards him, holding her hands out in worry. “Are you all right?”

 

Daryl pushes her arms away, rising back up, but his shoulders are still hunched and he’s still holding his side. “Just leave me be!” He growls, slouching away. 

 

 

I step forward in the open, ready to act like I had just walked in and maybe stop this entire thing, when Daryl mutters something under his breath. 

 

_“Stupid bitch.”_

 

Carol gasps a soft hitch of air, and I halt. 

 

I can’t fix that.

 

I hide in one of the horse’s empty stables, and wait until I hear Carol’s footsteps shuffle away a few moments later. She had been frozen with shock. I frown, not liking this turn of events. But at the same time, it might have been for the best. At least they didn’t do what I thought they might have. As I rise up from the hay, my hand catches my eye. My engagement ring wrapped around my finger.

 

It gleamed so brightly against the dusky wood and hay around me. In hard times, it was the only thing I had left of who I was before, of what I had. The watch on my opposite hand was just something I had taken off a walker along my journey. It wasn’t even from a special milestone of my count; it just had the right time. There wasn’t anything special about it other than that. I wasn’t a person who wore watches in the past world, but without it now, I would feel lost. These two items helped keep me from going to another place that I probably wouldn’t come back from. They kept me grounded. They were something I could depend on. 

 

I didn’t know what the others had in means of keeping themselves sane, or if they had anything at all. With Sophia missing, I couldn’t let myself get distracted. I had already done enough of that. I would be a better person. The person I was before the world went to shit didn’t matter. The person I was in the early months of it didn’t, either. I was just some killing machine. I had people to look after now, backs to watch. 

 

Sophia was what put me here. She is what gave this new opportunity for me. These people weren’t bad. However, Shane was a different story. He evolved after the world changed. The only reason he was still around was because Rick still had a bond with him from before. He fit this world like the types of people I avoided from when I was alone. They thrived in this anarchy, and manipulated others weaknesses for selfish reasons. I know that there must be some redeeming qualities in Shane, but I didn’t have the time to think about them.

 

Sophia was my number one priority right now. 

 

She didn’t need to worry about Daryl and Carol. I would make sure of it. 

 

Now, where else can I look… ?

 

 

It’s been a few hours, but I finally decided to look past the fences of the farm. I was coming up empty on the inside, and I wasn’t sure if anything was making sense. Sophia couldn’t get in the barn full of walkers, and she wasn’t anywhere else on the farm. Maybe she had hid somewhere along the fence, got chased out? It was the only thing that made sense.

 

After I quick trip back to camp, I grabbed my backpack with my bat. My guns were still on me, which no one has said anything on. I had wisely placed them under my shirt in my waistband, although inconvenient and probably still visible if anyone cared.

 

While walking, there hadn’t been any signs of a person walking or walker. That is, until I went further to the back of the farm. But was it her tracks, or someone else’s? They looked recent. Might as well see.

 

* * *

 

The tracks, I realize, are from two people. A pile of grainy dirt has a compression of a grown man’s boot, and I realize that the grooves of it is a little too familiar.

 

I head in the direction they’re going, and pull one of my guns from behind me. The other shoe prints didn’t belong to Rick or Andrea. They were sneaker marks, which neither wore. They were also on top of each other, like someone was following the other. 

 

I cock my gun. If my suspicions were correct, then I might very well need it out and ready.

 

As I go further into the woods, the terrain starts to become swampy. I hop on a tipped over tree as I get closer to the sounds of voices, and pause when something catches my ears.

 

“You gonna shoot me, like you did Otis? Tell another story?” Dale.

 

A merciless chuckle. “No, man,” and crunching footsteps. “Hell, when you really look at it in the cold light of day, you're pretty much dead already.”

 

I rear around the tree to look at the figures a little bit aways from me. Dale is facing my general direction, and Shane has his back to me. My right hand keeps my gun steady and down.

 

“You think this is gonna keep us safe?”

 

“Mm-hmm. I know it is.”

 

“Rick is trying to get Hershel —“ 

 

“Dale, shut up. Just shut up and give me the guns.”

 

“Am I gonna have to shoot you? Do I have to kill you? Is that what it's gonna take?” Dale has his shotgun out and aimed at Shane. I don’t move an inch, not sure what would happen if I do.

 

Shane does the opposite. He walks forward, the shotgun pressing against the center of his chest.“Eh, yeah, that's what it's gonna take.” Fearless. Cocky. Asshole move.

 

Dale stays still a moment before slackening his grip on the gun. I frown.

 

He opens his mouth, speaking the thoughts I had earlier today in a clearer way. “This is where you belong, Shane.” 

 

“How's that, Dale?” Shane asks. Dale slings the shotgun on his shoulder as he speaks. 

 

“This world, what it is now, this is where you belong. And I may not have what it takes to last for long, but that's okay. 'Cause at least I can say that when the world goes to _shit_ … I didn't let it take me down with it.” Dale was too good of a guy to stop Shane; he couldn’t pull that trigger if he wanted to.

 

But I wasn’t. 

 

Shane smirks as he turns around in time to see me with my gun raised at him. His eyes widen a fraction of a second, and then he’s scowling.

 

“And what the hell are you doing out here, huh?” He bellows, and I want to shoot him right there. But I don’t. I can’t. Not yet.

 

“Looking for Sophia. Something you don’t seem so inclined to do.” Shane scowls again before he tips his chin up, defiantly.

 

“Guess these aren’t all the guns. You walking around here armed to the teeth, passin’ weapons out to kids, yet you still got more hidden? Why pull ‘em out now? Let me guess: you gonna do a Dale and flaunt your gun at me ‘fore I go on my merry way?” He asks, confident in how untouchable he may be. If I shot him, the group would never forgive me. They would view me as a threat, as a villain. 

 

I couldn’t let Sophia down like that.

 

“Maybe,” I divulge, shrugging, not sure what question I answered in his whole talk. I could shoot him down right here and now. I didn’t feel safe around him, and the others didn’t, either, if I took a guess. In this world, i didn’t need hard evidence for a jurisdiction to be made. A gut instinct and a weapon were it.

 

“Lila, don’t,” Dale forces out. He probably wants me to, though. He was in my position just a minute ago. And I can. I could. I _should_.

  
We’re quiet. Shane doesn’t move, just flexes his jaw. Dale is stressing out, and I realize that he’s not pulling the shotgun on me. He wouldn’t stop me if I did shoot Shane, but would he afterwards?

 

Something is in the trees. There’s something coming towards us slowly, quietly. They can’t see it, but I can. It’s not another from our group, and it’s not alive. A walker.

 

The moment is tense, and I didn’t think it could get any more than that, but it does once I fire the shot. It rings for miles.

 

Shane flinches horribly, closing his eyes briefly, looking strangely accepting. Dale jumps back like it’s an explosion, probably expecting brains to come flying towards his white tank and Aloha shirt. I wouldn’t have normally wasted a bullet like that, especially on just one walker far enough away, but I wanted to get my message across. I could have shot him, but I didn’t. We all had another enemy. _One_.

 

Shane opens his eyes, mouth parted and panting for air, surprised he even can. Dale looks like he’s struggling with some existential crisis as he looks from Shane, to the ground, to behind him when the walker collapses. Shane turns and watches it go, something in his eyes as he does.

 

My jaw works as I lower the gun.

 

“The only reason you’re alive is Sophia. She’d kill me if I killed you.” I state. Shane’s lips twitch into a half smirk, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. 

 

“Guess we better find her, then.” He says, brushing past me. He doesn’t bump into my shoulder, but almost. I can smell and see the sweat drops from him by how close he gets. Dale and I watch his back as he stomps through twigs and leaves in the direction of the farm.

 

As soon as Shane’s steps are out of earshot, Dale speaks.

 

“You’re a good shot,” he says, still looking like he’s comprehending something. I turn to him, and I hope my face isn’t as passive as I feel.

 

“My practice came in the form of the real things,” I say, placing my gun back behind me.

 

Dale nods, still looking at something in the distance with a thoughtful look on his face.

 

“You can track?” He asks, eyebrows going from scrunching to arching, impressed.

 

“I can recognize his boot prints from anywhere. Almost smashed my face in with it. ’S not something you forget. Not when it’s your life.” Dale hums, grabbing the strap of his shotgun as he walks beside me, back to the farm. I pull out my book to write in my count.

 

~~**_= 1550_ ** ~~

**_+_ ** **_1_ **

**_= 1551_ **

 

“No, I suppose it’s not,” he mumbles, but I don’t know what kind of double meaning he’s getting at, so I don’t comment. I

 

The journey back to the farm is quiet, save the crunching of leaves under our feet. The trees were still vivid green, but some of them were turning yellow. The ones on the ground were mostly that shade, and I start to think about the weather changing.

 

Sleeping outside wouldn’t really be an option anymore. Would I need to take resident in Daryl’s tent again? The tent would be cold, unless we reinforced the outside with something to preserve the heat inside. We would need thicker clothes. Could we survive outside in the snow for so long? Would Hershel allow us to sleep in the house? Would we even be on this farm for that long? The game was over. Sophia should be found soon. And then, we’ll deal with the walkers in the barn. And then, we’ll worry about winter. Yes. Yes, that was the order we would do this in.

 

A gunshot rings through the air.

 

I stop, looking at Dale. He’s okay, but he’s not looking at me. He’s staring ahead, and I realize the shot came from there. 

 

It came from the farm.

 

“Is that… ?” I trail, not sure what to do. A walker could have gotten close to the farm, or maybe someone else took down a walker like I had earlier.

 

Dale opens his mouth to say something, but is cut off my even more gunfire, all coming from the farm.

 

We don’t look at each other as we run through the trees. I’m ahead of Dale, already seeing the fence line. But there’s no walkers there. I expertly jump over the pallet lined fence, and the pallet I had used as support swings down on one side. I ignore it, my limbs pumping as I skid through the space between the house and chicken coup, following the gunshots. People were yelling.

 

In my mind, I could only think of Sophia. What if she had came from the forest, crying for help, followed by a horde of walkers? I grit my teeth as I come into the middle of the farm, the thought unsettling me.

 

When I finally see the backs of the others, it’s not what I imagined.

 

The barn.

 

They opened it.

 

I slow my run down, watching as almost the entire group, save the Grimes and Carol are shooting down the walkers spilling out of the doors. Hershel’s family are looking on in despair. I frown, walking slowly up to where Carol is, farther from the group. Carl and Lori are behind Rick, who is telling them to stay back. 

 

The guns Shane had taken from Dale were now in the hands of everyone, shooting down walkers. They were sloppy with it; shooting them in the chests before getting to the heads. A woman with tossled curls and a pattern dress limps forward, and she looks like the pictures in the house. The ones with Beth as a baby in her arms. It must be her mother. 

 

The gunshot Daryl aims at her knocks out a piece of her jaw and teeth as she goes down. I hear Beth let out a strangled cry, clutching onto Jimmy.

 

I’ve never taken out a walker in front of someone that used to be family. It didn’t bother me, but rubbed me the wrong way.

 

Hershel and his family think these people are just sick. They think they’re still alive somewhere.   This was like murder for them. It was a massacre.

 

I always counted myself as heartless. No one was around to tell me otherwise, but I wasn’t. I couldn’t take out these walkers with them watching on in desperation. Did Hershel know all these people? They must know most of them. His stepson was in here, too.

 

As more bodies fall to the ground, the less shots are fired. After the last two walkers are taken down, I see the ones lined up as soldiers lower their guns. The ones that had been shooting are panting, and Andrea and Shane have grim smiles on their faces. They looked satisfied.

 

I would be, too, had the circumstances been different. These walkers needed to go, yes, but there were more effective means. Hershel’s family didn’t need to watch on helplessly as people they thought were alive were having their heads blown out.

 

Soon, it’s quiet. Hershel’s family are sobbing, and Hershel is quiet as he continues to stare in disbelief at what has just happened in front of him. Lowering my head, I ball my hands into fists, trying to reason that I shouldn’t be feeling so okay with having the walkers taken care of as I did. There were other ways to take care of this. I feel a sting on my left wrist from the cut earlier, and it helps keep me quiet as the silence drags on. Dale comes up beside me, taking in the scene.

 

But then I hear it.

 

A soft growling sound coming from inside the barn.

 

I don’t raise my head up, expecting the others to take care of the lone walker that would inevitably come out of the barn, but they don’t. Instead, I hear the pants from before suddenly stop.

 

When I raise my head up, dragging my eyes up from the ground, I don’t expect to see blue sneakers peeking out from the barns’ doors. I don’t expect to see the thin ankles and khaki capris. I don’t expect to see the blue shirt with the melting rainbow I had first met her in be sagging off her body. Thin arms coated in blood are raised up. 

 

My eyes widen.

 

Sophia.

 

She was alive?

 

Her pale arms fall back down, and matted hair is sticking to her face. Her face is sunken in, her eyes aren’t her eyes. The whites are now grey, her hazel eyes are now clouded like cataracts. Her temple has running marks of blood going down the side of her face. 

 

“Sophia?” Carol cries, hope and desperation in her voice. I can’t turn away from Sophia, though. I can’t look away. Carol runs forward, but I don’t stop her. I can’t move.

 

“Sophia!” Carol cries again, and Daryl stops her by wrapping his arms around her middle. She falls to the ground, not able to keep standing. 

 

“Sophia…” she whines out, and I bite hard at my bottom lip as the person she’s calling for steps forward. Carl and Lori let out whimpers, and my heartstrings tug. I’ve never seen anyone here cry. I never want to again.

 

Sophia wasn’t. She wasn’t alive.

 

But.

 

She couldn’t have.

 

Sophia couldn’t have gotten in there.

 

Glenn had said so. He said there was no way. And I knew that she couldn’t get in that window; it was locked; it wouldn’t have been if she had gotten through it. I wouldn’t have struggled so hard with it as I did.

 

Sophia growls, stepping on and over the other dead bodies below her. I’m shellshocked.

 

Sophia couldn’t have gotten in there. How did she get in there? She would have known there were walkers in there if she had walked around it close enough. How? How?

 

I feel myself shaking as she gets closer, and I can’t breathe suddenly.

 

So this is what it was like.

 

Seeing someone you cared for as a walker.

 

Something falls out from behind Sophia. Something black and goompy, thick and slimy. 

 

Something else comes out, too, and it’s a dark red. Liquids.

 

Oh, god. 

 

Sophia stumbles over a hand, and she favors her right side for a moment. And that’s when I see it.

 

Her back.

 

It’s _gone_.

 

Her shirt is ripped and blood caked. Her skin is gone. I can see her spinal cord. I can see some of her leftover organs. I can see her insides. 

 

She was torn apart.

 

I feel dizzy as she gets closer, and I shudder and take a step back. I feel faint. Am I going to faint? I’ve never felt this way with a walker. This is worse than the first call scene I went on. This is worse. This is the worst feeling. The absolute worst.

 

I gulp down the rancid flavor in my mouth, shivering.

 

Sophia was closer, and no one was moving. No one could move. I couldn’t move.

 

The ferocious growls coming from her were so unlike what she was like before. Who she was. 

 

This wasn’t Sophia. This wasn’t the girl I saved — the girl who saved me from becoming less than human. This was a walker. Sophia was dead.

 

I take a step forward, but so does Rick.

 

He walks up to Sophia, raising his pistol.

 

His hand falters, lowering a fraction. Sophia wobbles towards him, her eyes set on his. But those weren’t her eyes. Not anymore.

 

The sound of the shot ripples through me as it goes through her head. 

 

She falls.

 

Sophia was gone.

 

Sophia was dead.

 

And I will need to accept that, just like everyone else. 

 

I do. I have to.

Everyone is still. The only cries are coming from Carol and Beth now. I unclench my fists, gulping down the tightness in my throat as I look at everyone. 

 

Carol sounds like she’s lost the world. And she has, hasn’t she?

 

Daryl pulls her up, but she resists.

 

“Don’t look,” he says. “Don’t look.”

 

She thrashes away from him, clenched teeth and feral eyes. She runs away from everyone, from the body, from the scene. I look back at everyone as they all look to her, sympathy in their eyes.

 

Beth sobs as she stumbles forward, towards the bodies. Rick tries to push her back, but she shoves him off.

 

She walks towards the woman with the curly hair. She’s under another man’s body.

 

Beth pulls him away, and I walk up to where Carl is. He looks calm. He looks… unaffected. What happened to his cries from earlier? Lori looks at me, looking more disturbed by what just happened than Carl.

 

We tear our away from each other as Beth screams. Her mother was pulling at her blonde pigtails.

 

I run forward, just like the others. Some work at pulling her away, while others work to pull the walker that was once her mother back. T-Dog raises his shoe as he stomps on the woman’s head, and I think of Shane.

 

He was the one that started this, wasn’t he?

 

Glenn has the dead woman’s wrists, but she’s chomping her teeth at him, wanting, hungry.

 

T-Dog raises his shoe again, but that’s not fair. I think of my knife, but I can’t get that close without possibly slashing Glenn as the walker thrashes around. I look around, and see a scythe leaning against the barn.

 

Andrea looks like she’s about to grab it, but I get there first.

 

T-Dog sees me, and jumps back. Glenn blanches but I have a good swing. But my bat looked brutal afterwards, and Beth didn’t need to see her mom with her head bashed in.

 

I swing the scythe in one smooth motion, and it plants itself in the woman’s skull. _Two._

 

Everything is quiet, once again.

 

Maggie, Beth, Hershel, and Patricia are soothing a distraught Beth. Jimmy helps me dislodge the scythe, and the body sags. Glenn lets go of her arms, nodding at me in appreciation. I nod back, throwing the scythe down on the ground, blowing hair out of my face.

 

Shane, Rick, and Glenn follow after the Greene’s family as they go back towards the house. The rest of us start to clean up this mess.

 

In the moments it takes for them to come back, the sun is behind dark clouds. Lori and Carl had been talking, but she tells Dale to take him back to camp.The windmill is spinning harshly, and I avoid looking at Sophia’s corpse as we work in piling the bodies around. It was decided by Rick that we would bury family, and burn the rest of the bodies farther out in the woods. 

 

After I’m done dragging the last body, I look around. Jimmy and Shane are getting the truck. Daryl left to go see Carol. T-Dog and Andrea are talking over by the dead bodies. Rick and Lori are talking quietly amongst themselves, away from the others. I didn’t see myself being around any of them, so I went inside the barn, just to see what Sophia must have seen.

 

As I walked into the barn, the smell of death was still pungent inside. However, it wasn’t the smell that bothered me, but the blood. I was never one to shy away from it, even as a kid. Paper cuts and scabs fascinated me like a pyromaniac towards fire. But it was the fact that I knew _whose_ blood that was on the wheat straws. Sophia’s.

 

I walk over to the side that it’s most prominent in. The open window I had fallen from earlier was shining a light down on the spot where the blood dried. All blood looked the same, but this was Sophia’s. Sophia, who had done more for me than I had let her know. I never thanked her for talking me into staying. I didn’t get to do a lot of things for her. And I couldn’t anymore. I had my chance, and I didn’t take it. I thought I would have more time. I didn’t think. I hadn’t thought of the possibility that this would happen. To think there would have been a warning, or that she would have known to not come in this locked barn. My eyes drift up to the window. Had she really gotten in from there? She was so smart, she might have found a better way to break through. It wasn’t her fault she didn’t know monsters were inside, waiting for her.

 

Wait.

 

My eyes narrow at the light coming through the window. There was no way she could have fallen through there. She would have seen them, and backed out as soon as possible. No, Sophia wouldn’t have jumped in through there. She wouldn’t know how to jam it open. And the light that was shining through the window was dull, even with it open. It wasn’t as bright as the one shining on the floor.

 

Squinting, I look back and forth from the bloody ground to window. The window’s reflected light formed a crisscrossed shadow in the middle of the square illumination from the window panes. But the floor didn’t reflect that harsh shadow, but a mere fade of it. It wasn’t even a perfect square. I crane my head back.

 

The roof.

 

I step forward, fully into the light coming from the gaping hole in the roof. A hole that someone could fall through. Realization washes over me as I take in the opening. AndI remember what I had once told Sophia, the smart girl who remembered everything she was told. 

 

_“It’s safer in high places.”_

 

Oh, God, it was my fault. It was my fault.

 

It was all my fault.

 

My left hand raises to cover my opening mouth, barely muffling the strangled wail I can’t suppress as I feel my face crumble like my insides.

 

Sophia had climbed the roof. She must have used the tractor to get that high. She knew she couldn’t open that window, so she decided to hide on the roof of the barn instead. She had gone up there, but it caved in. The roof caved in and she couldn’t —

 

She couldn’t get out. 

 

She must have knocked her head when she fell, and that was why her temple had left such a large trail down her face. She must have been unconscious when they got to her. Oh, God, I hoped she had been unconscious. I hoped more than anything in the world that she didn’t feel it. That she didn’t feel her back being ripped over, that she didn’t feel their hands inside, taking her organs out. That she didn’t wake up in the middle of it, crying out in pain and for help.

 

Tears stream out of my eyes and I squeeze them tight, trying to stop the thoughts from coming in, but they won’t stop. My imagination is wild, and I can’t stop thinking. I can’t take it out.

 

And it was all my fault.

 

If I can accept Sophia’s death, then I will need to accept that it was my fault.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, after I really thought about it, Sophia being in the barn the entire time during season 2 was the climax of the season. I have read other fanfic’s where she lives through everything, like in the comics, and I have read some where she’s already been missing and dead before the OC comes in the story. But I haven’t read one where she’s found, then goes missing, and then is found in the barn. Figured I could create a different story for everyone, but still have the impactfulness and symbolism from the canon death.


End file.
